Derek Walcott's Bounty: Quick Dispatch from the Front Lines

Since I read the selected poems of Derek Walcott, I've wanted more. Poet/critic Christian Wiman called the 1998 book The Bounty "a great book," enough for me to order it online with 1-click.

[See my appreciation, Never Get used to Derek Walcott's Poetry (01/2023).]

I'm only a few pages into it. As usual with Walcott, I've had to re-read portions and google some references to get oriented. He's worth the trouble. Besides, there are incidental pleasures that keep me going.

Here's a pair of lines that made me laugh out loud, they're so apt and so connected to what I see on my bike rides through wooded Georgia every day: Deer vault invisible hurdles and sniff the sharp air,// squirrels spring up like questions,...

Those are lines from stanza vii of the opening eponymous poem, which may be about a visit to his mother's grave, which may be located near a beach on the island of St. Lucia, but somehow is related to a seaside English town where Victorian nature poet John Clare is buried. I'll have to get back to the book on that one.