The Story Archive

The Bounty

Derek Walcott · 1997 CE · Poem · Caribbean · Contemporary

The long opening elegy for the poet's mother is written in the company of John Clare, who lost his reason and his fields, and it moves between a St Lucian graveyard and an English meadow as though the two shared a hedge. The shorter poems that follow count what a Caribbean spring hands back each year without being asked. Walcott's first book after the Nobel, quieter than anything before it and steadied by ordinary weather.

Open The Bounty in the archive — filters, lineage graph and full facet browsing.

Attributes

Genre
Psychological
Theme
Death & MortalityMemory & TimeMotherhoodFaith & Doubt
Archetype (Jung / Campbell)
The Great MotherWandererEveryman
Plot structure
Meditation
Symbol / motif
The GardenFlowersThe Seasons
Conflict
vs Selfvs Fate / Gods
Mode / tone
ElegiacLyricalPastoral
Culture / tradition
Caribbean

Closest analogues