If the most beautiful thing in the world is inherited wealth, Derek Walcott's poetry is rich. He has none of the self-made man's frugality. He is a natural with all the confidence of a capitalist: that words will never run short, that there will always be fresh pleasures, new colours. He is extravagant and his poems are beautifully illuminated. They make the mouth water…. We drink its vocables and become lightheaded, but we wake up without a hangover. His poems have an indestructible flavour like that of a summer holiday abroad: bright, congested, nostalgic. They send us far from the complexities of cities, but they return us safe and sound.

[In a Green Night] is Derek Walcott's first collection of poetry and the book is well packed and comprehensive, containing Derek (Alton) Walcott 1930– Photograph by Layle Silbert; © copyright 1983poems written between 1948 and 1960…. I would rather have had a...