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My feeling about it when I read it was that he does a lot of the old-fashioned things that poets don't do much any more, but shows they can still work - those very lyrical descriptions with their striking similes for example: 'I sucked on / an extra-strong moon till it melted' or 'Night was fanning its coalpot / from one catching star'. I also love the way the epic form gives him the freedom to wander off his plot into long digressions that novelists would find difficulty getting away with. To me the African section and the Ghost Dance section are extremely moving, and I think it's the epic form that's given him the freedom to explore these themes. I read Omeros before DW's other work (apart from Summer, which struck me as a dutiful, keeping-the-muse-ticking-over book), so it may be that my perspective is different from that of some of his critics. I didn't have a sense that he was overworking an already exhausted vein. I gather Walcott has had a fishcake named after him in St Lucia. Now that's what I call an honour. Best wishes Matthew -----Original Message----- From: Anthony Lawrence <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> Date: 21 February 2001 23:03 Subject: Re: Walcott >I was waiting too Matthew. I like a lot of Walcott's work. >Omeros works for me (most of the time) because of the typically >generous, often risky sentences, and the amazing sense of place >that he's always been able to create. It's difficult to rhyme well. >Sometimes he broadcasts the endwords. They become prescriptive >rather than inventive. He's no Muldoon, and yet.... >I often return to the early work, to those fineboned lyrical >poems and more narrative poems, where vernacular and intense imagery >are aligned almost seamlessly. > >Anthony >