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The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott & the Art of Romare Bearden.

New York: Limited Editions Club, 1983.


Florida International University. Special Collections Department, The Library. Miami, Florida.

Florida International University serves the greater Miami community and is one of nine institutions in the state university system of Florida. The university was established in 1965, and classes began at the University Park Campus in 1972. A second campus is located in North Miami. The libraries recently celebrated the acquisition of their one millionth volume. The library on the University Park Campus will soon undergo a major expansion. The Special Collections Department includes rare materials related to the Caribbean and Latin America.

Derek Walcott. Derek Walcott stands as one of the preeminent poets and playwrights of the West Indies. In possession of a number of awards, including the Nobel Prize for Literature, Walcott offers a unique perspective on the multi-cultural heritage embodied by the New World. Walcott was born on January 23, 1930, in Castries, Saint Lucia. He published his first poems at the age of fourteen and his first book at the age of eighteen. "The writers of my generation were natural assimilators," he stated, recognizing both the influence of a classical education and the contributions of a Caribbean culture. Walcott's career as a writer, teacher, and playwright produced the Little Carib Theatre Workshop, an organization he founded and ran from 1959 to 1976, and the Saint Lucia Arts Guild, where he wrote, cast, produced, and directed plays.


Derek Walcott. The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott & the Art of Romare Bearden. New York: Limited Editions Club, 1983.

Walcott writes of the world he sees, influenced by his native Saint Lucia and his adopted North America. Whether crafting a description of past memories, or contradictions between the ancient and modern cultures of the New World, Derek Walcott speaks with an international reputation for excellence. Caribbean Poetry... is a distinctive book in many ways. With an introduction by Joseph Brodsky and illustrations by the distinguished artist Romare Bearden, this volume presents the work of Derek Walcott in a new light, one as bright and striking as the Caribbean sky.

The physical construction and design of the work are the result of careful planning and consideration. Use of sixteen point size Bembo type, the printing of type pages at the Anthonensen Press, and the reproduction of illustrations by the Seaboard Lithograph Company contribute to the beauty of this volume. Bearden's personal design of the fabric that appears on the cover required fifteen separate hand-cut silk screens. The firm of Ratti d performed this work in Como, Italy. The book is limited to 2,000 copies.


Derek Walcott. Earth by Derek Walcott. New York: Silver Hands Press, 1981. Colophon: Two days before Spring, 1981 Pat Apatovsky proprietor of THE SILVER HANDS PRESS, N.Y.C. Illustrated and Printed this Poetry Broadside.

This signed broadside offers Derek Walcott's homage to the world from which all things rise and fall. The work was printed in an edition of twelve copies with the illustration done by Patricia Apatovsky, the printer. The poem's final line, "you can never be dispossessed," strikes at the heart of Walcott's writing, linking man with his physical world.