Art visual np2

It's my birthday and the first gift I got today was White Egrets, the latest collection of poems by Derek Walcott. I've placed it at the top of my pile of bedside books which I've been slowly working my way through for a good few years now. Here is the opening poem from White Egrets: 1. The chessmen are as rigid on their chessboard as those life-sized terra-cotta warriors whose vows to their emperor with bridle, shield and sword were sworn by a chorus that has lost its voice; no echo in that astonishing excavation. Each soldier gave an oath, each gave his word to die for his emperor, his clan, his nation, to become a chess piece, breathlessly erect in shade or crossing sunlight, without hours-- from clay to clay and odorlessly strict. If vows were visible they might see ours as changeless chessmen in the changing light on the lawn outside where bannered breakers toss and the palms gust with music that is time's above the chessmen's silence. Motion brings loss. A sab...

'At the gate, Petit Valley', circa 1980, watercolour. They linger in the shadow of his accomplishments as a poet. These delicate watercolours and oil paintings that drape the walls of this small room. Many have come out today to listen to Walcott do a reading across the street from here, but few have ventured to the the principal's office of the University of the West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad; to this small exhibition of private family paintings by a man whose reputation as a world-class poet bedazzles. But the private family paintings here are far from all of that. They tell a different story; one rarely glimpsed and appreciated. For while Walcott--who at the date of this post celebrates his 80th birthday--may be remembered for his poetry, these pieces, I think, deserve to be rememembered for their quiet stylistic flair and their testimony to the talents of a man perhaps more read than understood. Undoubtedly he is more of a poet than a painter, but he is a painter o...