This remarkable collection, which won the 1986 Los Angeles Times Book
Prize for Poetry, includes most of the poems from each of Derek
Walcott's seven prior books of verse and all of his long
autobiographical poem, "Another Life." The 1992 Nobel Laureate in
Literature, Walcott has been producing--for several decades--a poetry
with all the beauty, wisdom, directness, and narrative force of our
classic myths and fairy tales, and in this hefty volume readers will
find a full record of his important endeavor. "Walcott's virutes as a
poet are extraordinary," James Dickey wrote in The New York Times Book
Review. "He could turn his attention on anything at all and make it
live with a reality beyond its own; through his fearless language it
becomes not only its acquired life, but the real one, the one that lasts
. . . Walcott is spontaneous, headlong, and inventive beyond the limits
of most other poets now writing."