The Arkansas Testament

by Derek Walcott

Overview

Derek Walcott's eighth collection of poems, The Arkansas Testament, is divided into two parts—"Here," verse evoking the poet's native Caribbean, and "Elsewhere." It opens with six poems in quatrains whose memorable, compact lines further Walcott's continuous effort to crystallize images of the Caribbean landscape and people.

For several years, Derek Walcott has lived mainly in the United States. "The Arkansas Testament," one of the book's long poems, is a powerful confrontation of changing allegiances. The poem's crisis is the taking on of an extra history, one that challenges unquestioning devotion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780374520991
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	09/01/1988
Pages:	120
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.30(d)

About the Author

Derek Walcott (1930-2017) was born in St. Lucia, the West Indies, in 1930. His Collected Poems: 1948-1984 was published in 1986, and his subsequent works include a book-length poem, Omeros (1990); a collection of verse, The Bounty (1997); and, in an edition illustrated with his own paintings, the long poem Tiepolo's Hound (2000). His numerous plays include The Haitian Trilogy (2001) and Walker and The Ghost Dance (2002). Walcott received the Queen's Medal for Poetry in 1988 and the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992.

Table of Contents

	Here
	The Lighthouse	3
	Cul de Sac Valley	9
	Roseau Valley	16
	A Latin Primer	21
	The Villa Restaurant	25
	The Three Musicians	28
	Saint Lucia's First Communion	33
	Gros-Ilet	34
	The Whelk Gatherers	36
	White Magic	38
	A Letter from the Old Guard	40
	Storm Figure	44
	Marina Tsvetaeva	46
	The Light of the World	48
	Oceano Nox	52
	Night Fishing	56
	To Norline	57
	Elsewhere
	Eulogy to W.H. Auden	61
	Elsewhere	66
	Steam	68
	Central America	70
	Roman Peace	71
	Salsa	72
	Sunday in the Old Republic	73
	French Colonial. "Vers de Societe"	75
	Mimi, the Near-Suicide	77
	Fame	78
	Tomorrow, Tomorrow	79
	Streams	80
	Winter Lamps	82
	For Adrian	87
	Safe Conduct	89
	Pentecost	90
	The Young Wife	91
	Summer Elegies	93
	A Propertius Quartet	97
	Menelaus	101
	God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen, Part II	102
	The Arkansas Testament	104

Editorial Reviews

"In language that is unfailingly fresh and inventive, Walcott reminds us in every poem that a largely unexperienced world exists just "outside the door." - Library Journal

From the Publisher

Despite its title, this is another evocation of Walcott's St. Lucia, a Caribbean paradise of whelk-gatherers, sea grapes, and sugar cane where the poet reads ``silvery nouns'' and deciphers ``scriptures of sand.'' Walcott is again the consummate phrasemaker, describing a night ``with white rum on its breath'' and a moon ``with a birthmark like Gorbachev's head.'' He includes a sequence of poignant love poems and concludes with the title poem, a painful examination of the visiting black poet's role in an Arkansas where he ``was still nothing.'' In language that is unfailingly fresh and inventive, Walcott reminds us in every poem that a largely unexperienced world exists just ``outside the door.'' Daniel L. Guillory, Millikin Univ., Decatur, Ill.

Library Journal