Creating an epic poem based on Homer and Odysseus seems a risky proposition for a modern poet, but Derek Walcott accomplishes the feat with stunning results in Omeros. The title, which is Homer's name in Greek, nods to the wandering and exile of the great poet himself, who learned and suffered while traveling. From there, Walcott takes off to "see the cities of many men and to know their minds." After an exhilarating exploration of tremendous proportions, we learn of the past and the present and ride along the rhythm of the words of Walcott in this amazing text.


From Publishers Weekly
This magnificent modern epic by poet-playwright Walcott ( The Arkansas Testament ) follows the wanderings of a present-day Odysseus and the inconsolable sufferings of those who are displaced and traveling with trepidation toward their homes. Written in seven circling books and magically fluid tercets, the poem illuminates the classical past and its motifs through an extraordinary cast of contemporary characters from the island of Santa Lucia: humble fishermen Achilles, Philoctete and Hector; a feverishly beautiful house servant, Helen, who incites her own Trojan War; a local seer, Seven Seas; and the narrator himself, who wanders to the States, to Europe and back again although he knows, "the nearer home, the deeper our fears increase, / that no house might come to meet us on our own shore." Singularly ambitious, and as moving as the works of its namesake, Omeros (Greek for "Homer") remains accessible despite its complexity and divergent strains, which include the privations of Native Americans, African natives and exiled English colonials. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
If you can buy only one Walcott title, get this Carribean epic. Farrar will release his newest, The Bounty, in June.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Mary Lefkowitz
Mr. Walcott's epic is a significant and timely reminder that the past is not the property of those who first created it; it always matters to all of us, no matter who we are or where we were born.


Review
"No poet rivals Mr. Walcott in humor, emotional depth, lavish inventiveness in language, or the ability to express the thoughts of his characters and compel the reader to follow the swift mutations of ideas and images in their minds. This wonderful story moves in a spiral, replicating human thought, and in the end, surprisingly, it makes us realize that history, all of it, belongs to us."—Mary Lefkowitz, The New York Times Book Review (an Editors' Choice/Best Book of 1990 selection)

"Characters come fully and movingly to life in Walcott's hands; black and white are treated with equal understanding and sympathy as they go their complicated ways . . . Wit and verbal play . . . enliven every page of this extraordinary poem . . . A constant source of surprise and delight from stanza to stanza, a music so subtle, so varied, so exquisitely right that it never once, in more than eight thousand lines, strikes a false note."—Bernard Knox, The New York Review of Books

"One of the great poems of our time."—John Lucas, New Statesman and Society



Review
"No poet rivals Mr. Walcott in humor, emotional depth, lavish inventiveness in language, or the ability to express the thoughts of his characters and compel the reader to follow the swift mutations of ideas and images in their minds. This wonderful story moves in a spiral, replicating human thought, and in the end, surprisingly, it makes us realize that history, all of it, belongs to us."—Mary Lefkowitz, The New York Times Book Review (an Editors' Choice/Best Book of 1990 selection)

"Characters come fully and movingly to life in Walcott's hands; black and white are treated with equal understanding and sympathy as they go their complicated ways . . . Wit and verbal play . . . enliven every page of this extraordinary poem . . . A constant source of surprise and delight from stanza to stanza, a music so subtle, so varied, so exquisitely right that it never once, in more than eight thousand lines, strikes a false note."—Bernard Knox, The New York Review of Books

"One of the great poems of our time."—John Lucas, New Statesman and Society



Book Description
A poem in five books, of circular narrative design, titled with the Greek name for Homer, which simultaneously charts two currents of history: the visible history charted in events -- the tribal losses of the American Indian, the tragedy of African enslavement -- and the interior, unwritten epic fashioned from the suffering of the individual in exile.



About the Author
Derek Walcott was born in St. Lucia in 1930. His Collected Poems: 1948-1984 was published in 1986; his subsequent works include the book-length poem Omeros (1990), The Bounty (1997), and Tiepolo's Hound (2000), illustrated with the poet's own paintings. He received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992.

ANNOTATION

A poem in five books. The title is the Greek name for Homer, invoked by a Greek girl in exile beginning a long journey home.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A poem in five books, of circular narrative design, titled with the Greek name for Homer, which simultaneously charts two currents of history: the visible history charted in events -- the tribal losses of the American Indian, the tragedy of African enslavement -- and the interior, unwritten epic fashioned from the suffering of the individual in exile.

FROM THE CRITICS

G.E. Murray - Chicago Tribune

Unlike many Caribbean writers of his generation, Walcott resisted for a long time the lure of emigration, preferring to help establish a strong Caribbean literary culture from within as both poet and dramatist. As such he is described as "a 20th century man with an Elizabethan sense of language.

Publishers Weekly

This magnificent modern epic by poet-playwright Walcott (The Arkansas Testament) follows the wanderings of a present-day Odysseus and the inconsolable sufferings of those who are displaced and traveling with trepidation toward their homes. Written in seven circling books and magically fluid tercets, the poem illuminates the classical past and its motifs through an extraordinary cast of contemporary characters from the island of Santa Lucia: humble fishermen Achilles, Philoctete and Hector; a feverishly beautiful house servant, Helen, who incites her own Trojan War; a local seer, Seven Seas; and the narrator himself, who wanders to the States, to Europe and back again although he knows, ``the nearer home, the deeper our fears increase, / that no house might come to meet us on our own shore.'' Singularly ambitious, and as moving as the works of its namesake, Omeros (Greek for ``Homer'') remains accessible despite its complexity and divergent strains, which include the privations of Native Americans, African natives and exiled English colonials.

Library Journal

If you can buy only one Walcott title, get this Carribean epic.

Library Journal

If you can buy only one Walcott title, get this Carribean epic.

G.E. Murray