Omeros

A masterpiece of modern epic poetry from the Nobel Prize–winning author: "One of the great poems of our time." —John Lucas, New Statesman

Dive into the poignant verses of Omeros, a grand opus of epic poetry penned by Nobel laureate Derek Walcott. Told in multiple chapters and tracing two currents of history, this work offers an immersive blend of historic account and personal sentiment.


Titled with the Greek name for Homer, Omeros elegantly traverses the surface and depths of history. While wrapping you in the intricacies of Caribbean literature and Latin American poetry, the verses of Omeros take you on an emotional journey through Saint Lucian landscapes.


Celebrate the spirit of this significant contribution to Caribbean poetry and St. Lucian literature while unraveling the complex themes of 20th-century poetry, including slavery, Native American history, and more.

"Strenuous and thrilling . . . What justifies the title of Omeros is a sense of unbridled imaginative scope, that feeling of amplitude and sensuous inclusion which we find in Homer—and a few other writers, Lucretius, for instance, or Shakespeare or Whitman—and which Walcott can summon as much as any poet now living." —Michael Heyward, The Washington Post Book World
"No poet rivals Mr. Walcott in humor, emotional depth, lavish inventiveness in language or in the ability to express the thoughts of his characters and compel the reader to follow the swift mutations of ideas and images in their minds. This wonderful story moves in a spiral, replicating human thought, and in the end, surprisingly, it makes us realize that history, all of it, belongs to us." —The New York Times Book Review