Sunday, October 3, 2010

Thought for the Day

Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
~ Derek Walcott

________________

The above is excerpted from Walcott's poem "Love after Love" in Collected Poems 1948-1984 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1986; paperback edition, 1987). It is one of Walcott's most well-known and quoted poems.

Poet Kim Rosen's recitation of the poem can be found here. Text is here (Roger Housden's Ten Poems to Change Your Life [Harmony, 2001] on GoogleBooks).


Walcott was awarded the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. His Nobel Lecture is here. Go here for a bibliography. A 2005 video interview and a 2000 audio interview are here.


Derek Walcott on FaceBook

The New York Times Article and Resources

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The Moon
shines
on a cat

Meow

As a native Swede,I am particularly proud of my love poetry suite Sonnets for Katie.

My Poems

My wallpaper art Babes!)

Yours,

- Peter Ingestad, Sweden

Kathleen said...

This is wonderful. I love how you provide us with so many resources, lovely thoughts, amazing art in your blog. Thank you always.

S. Etole said...

If only that could be more easily done ...

A. Jay Adler said...

Very wise lines from a very wise poem.

Kelly Sauer said...

incredible quote. I am saving it.