Editing Derek Walcott (section)

=== Reception ===
Walcott's work has received praise from major poets including [[Robert Graves]], who wrote that Walcott "handles English with a closer understanding of its inner magic than most, if not any, of his contemporaries",<ref>Robert D. Hamner, [https://books.google.com/books?id=CkNTOawGMjwC&q=handles+English&pg=PA1 "Introduction"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231010174754/https://books.google.com/books?id=CkNTOawGMjwC&q=handles+English&pg=PA1 |date=10 October 2023 }}, ''Critical Perspectives on Derek Walcott'' (Three Continents, 1993), Lynne Rienner, 1997, p. 1.</ref> and [[Joseph Brodsky]], who praised Walcott's work, writing: "For almost forty years his throbbing and relentless lines kept arriving in the English language like tidal waves, coagulating into an archipelago of poems without which the map of modern literature would effectively match wallpaper. He gives us more than himself or 'a world'; he gives us a sense of infinity embodied in the language."<ref Name="Academy" /> Walcott noted that he, Brodsky, and the Irish poet [[Seamus Heaney]], who all taught in the United States, were a band of poets "outside the American experience".

The poetry critic [[William Logan (poet)|William Logan]] critiqued Walcott's work in a ''New York Times'' book review of Walcott's ''Selected Poems''. While he praised Walcott's writing in ''Sea Grapes'' and ''The Arkansas Testament'', Logan had mostly negative things to say about Walcott's poetry, calling ''Omeros'' "clumsy" and ''Another Life'' "pretentious". Logan concluded with: "No living poet has written verse more delicately rendered or distinguished than Walcott, though few individual poems seem destined to be remembered."<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/books/review/Logan.t.html|first1=William|last1=Logan|title=The Poet of Exile|date=8 April 2007|newspaper=The New York Times|access-date=19 March 2017|archive-date=22 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170322100843/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/08/books/review/Logan.t.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Most reviews of Walcott's work are more positive. For instance, in ''[[The New Yorker]]'' review of ''The Poetry of Derek Walcott'', [[Adam Kirsch]] had high praise for Walcott's oeuvre, describing his style in the following manner:

<blockquote>By combining the grammar of vision with the freedom of metaphor, Walcott produces a beautiful style that is also a philosophical style. People perceive the world on dual channels, Walcott's verse suggests, through the senses and through the mind, and each is constantly seeping into the other. The result is a state of perpetual magical thinking, a kind of ''[[Alice in Wonderland]]'' world where concepts have bodies and landscapes are always liable to get up and start talking.<ref name=Kirsch>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/03/full-fathom-five-2|title=Full Fathom Five|last=Kirsch|first=Adam|date=3 February 2014|magazine=The New Yorker|access-date=18 March 2017|archive-date=19 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170319222248/http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/02/03/full-fathom-five-2|url-status=live}}</ref></blockquote>

Kirsch calls ''Another Life'' Walcott's "first major peak" and analyzes the painterly qualities of Walcott's imagery from his earliest work through to later books such as ''Tiepolo's Hound''. Kirsch also explores the post-colonial politics in Walcott's work, calling him "the postcolonial writer par excellence". Kirsch calls the early poem "A Far Cry from Africa" a turning point in Walcott's development as a poet. Like Logan, Kirsch is critical of ''Omeros'', which he believes Walcott fails to successfully sustain over its entirety. Although ''Omeros'' is the volume of Walcott's that usually receives the most critical praise, Kirsch believes ''Midsummer'' to be his best book.<ref name=Kirsch />

In 2013 Dutch filmmaker Ida Does released ''Poetry is an Island'', a feature documentary film about Walcott's life and the ever-present influence of his birthplace of [[St Lucia]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=Charles|first1=Dee Lundy|title=It's Past Time For Walcott's Poetry Island|url=http://stluciastar.com/its-past-time-for-walcotts-poetry-island/|access-date=11 April 2017|work=St Lucia Star|date=19 May 2014|archive-date=11 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170411135816/http://stluciastar.com/its-past-time-for-walcotts-poetry-island/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=El Gammal-Ortiz|first1=Sharif|title=Film: Review Of "Poetry Is An Island"|url=https://repeatingislands.com/2015/08/13/film-review-of-poetry-is-an-island/|access-date=11 April 2017|work=Repeating Islands|date=13 August 2015|archive-date=11 April 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170411140514/https://repeatingislands.com/2015/08/13/film-review-of-poetry-is-an-island/|url-status=live}}</ref>