<> <> <> Derek Walcott, whose intricately metaphorical poetry captured the physical beauty of the Caribbean, the harsh legacy of colonialism and the complexities of living and writing in two cultural worlds, bringing him a Nobel Prize in Literature, died early Friday morning at his home near Gros Islet in St. Lucia. He was 87.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n BBC obit<\/a> <\/p>\n His great skill, and gift to literature, was the way in which he used his unique poetic voice to explore and explain the world from a largely unseen perspective. Walcott wrote dozens of books of poetry and plays, among them his epic poem Omeros and his Obie-winning drama, Dream on Monkey Mountain.<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n From Canada (Warlus) The Stranger who has loved you. <\/a><\/p>\n via<\/a><\/p>\n Brilliant poets find one another: their world is very small even though their influence is wide and deep. Being a self-described \u201ccountry boy\u201d didn\u2019t mean that Derek was cut off from so-called literary society. Derek\u2019s closest poet friends, the Russian-born Joseph Brodsky and Irish poet Seamus Heaney, wrote about the pain and fascinating distance and longing that comes with being in exile. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n A Mighty Poet has died (New Yorker) <\/a><\/p>\n Love After Love and say, sit here. Eat. all your life, whom you ignored the photographs, the desperate notes, Moring Paramin Derek Walcott and Peter Doig <\/a>(See art by Peter Doig) <\/p>\n![\"1aDomeros\"](\"http:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/1aDomeros.jpg\")
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\nJanuary 23, 1930, Castries, Saint Lucia
\nDied: March 17, 2017, Saint Lucia
\nNYtimes obit <\/a><\/p>\n
\nHe was never parochial or nationalistic, quite the opposite in fact. Derek Walcott was a master at using the specific to identify common ground and universal themes, illuminating both the individual and the collective. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n![\"1aDerekMarkStrand\"](\"http:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/1aDerekMarkStrand.jpeg\")
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\n(Mark Strand<\/a>, Joseph Brodsky, Adam Zagajewski, and Derek Walcott in Brodsky’s garden)<\/p>\n![\"1aDerekWallcot\"](\"http:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/1aDerekWallcot-e1489795038307.jpg\")
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\nSeen here with Seamus Heaney in D\u00fan Laoghaire DART station, 1989 [photo: Matt Kavanagh] <\/p>\n
\n The time will come
\nwhen, with elation
\nyou will greet yourself arriving
\nat your own door, in your own mirror
\nand each will smile at the other’s welcome,<\/p>\n
\nYou will love again the stranger who was your self.
\nGive wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
\nto itself, to the stranger who has loved you<\/p>\n
\nfor another, who knows you by heart.
\nTake down the love letters from the bookshelf,<\/p>\n
\npeel your own image from the mirror.
\nSit. Feast on your life.
\nDerek Walcott<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
![\"1aDerekSontag\"](\"http:\/\/www.mutanteggplant.com\/vitro-nasu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/1aDerekSontag.gif\")
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