Gulf and Other Poems

As his title suggests, Derek Walcott's new poemswhile making beautiful use of Caribbean imageryare concerned with themes of isolation and the achievement of identity through loneliness. When it was published in England in 1969, The Gulf was awarded the Cholmondeley prize for poetry. As the London Times wrote, "His new collection is as noble and stern and grand as Milton...Walcott writes with a tropical glory of images; handles his huge pyrotechnic vocabulary with iron-discipline , verve and nerve...His glittering intelligence and luxurious command of sensation fuse in a mastery of images which burst in the brain like balls of phosphorescent fire."The subject of the title poem is the alienation and isolation of an Americawhere filling-station signsproclaim the Gulf, an air, heavy with gassickens the state, from Newark to New Orleans.The central figure in the Caribbean poems is a Robinson...