Volume 3, Number 10 · December 31, 1964
Three Poets
By Robert Mazzocco
Selected Poems
by Derek Walcott
Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 85 pp., $4.00
O Taste and See
by Denise Levertov
New Directions, 83 pp., $1.50
Inventory
by Frank Lima
Tibor de Nagy, 27 pp., $2.00
Derek Walcott's Selected Poems embraces both work done in the last three or four years, and most of the poems published in his earlier, and only other, collection, In a Green Night. He is in his mid-thirties and is a West Indian. Robert Graves notes that he 'handles English with a closer understanding of its inner magic than most (if not any) of his English-born contemporaries.' Graves's favorites have always been odd; the oddest thing here is that of all the poets who have influenced Walcott (and there are many), Graves has made the slightest impact. Walcott lingers over his language like a lover; he employs orotund, mellifluously spun lines. He is, as they say, 'on stage,' and certainly his poems read aloud are more rewarding. In any case, these characteristics alone set him apart from his English-born contemporaries, most of whom in the manner of the Movement write wry, inelegant miniatures, the new emblem of the Welfare State.
Review, 2514 words
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