White Egrets by Derek Walcott

Derek Walcott was awarded the Nobel prize for literature in 1992 – and the book that earned him his reputation was Omeros, an outstanding homage to Homer written with buoyant originality. But the Nobel prize has done Walcott no favours. Stature has become a literary issue. It cannot be easy to know how to exist within your own work – where to put yourself – when you have acquired almost legendary status as a poet. I read the new collection looking for Walcott as a recognisable, distinctive human being and observed him disappear repeatedly behind his own majestic lines. He would often launch himself into the first person, then retreat into the mercy of the third, as if the exposure of speaking as himself were too great. More Here