I just found this news story from Saturday that reports Barack Obama was seen carrying a collection of poetry by Derek Walcott, specifically Collected Poems 1948-1984.
Walcott, who won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1992, is a great poet and a giant of Caribbean literature. I recommend Omeros, an epic poem that retells the Odyssey. I know that George Bush reads books, but I just can’t get excited about his choices, which mostly lean to biographies and sports books. Obama reads poetry. For fun. Can I go back in time and vote for him again?
Hey! I have that on my bookshelf! Proud to be an American…and an English Major…both in the same month!
And yes…it is a great read.
Paul, you won’t need a time machine. We’re all gonna have to vote for Obama again in less than 4 years, and probably in bigger numbers than this time around.
I plan on catching up on my Walcott reading by then, thanks for the post.
One of Bush’s reads was “The Stranger” by Camus.
Funny!
and in the salt chuckle of rocks
with their sea pools, there was the sound
like a rumour without any echo
of History, really beginning.
I can’t be the only one who doesn’t see Bush nose deep in “The Nine Parts of Desire”.
If you like “Omeros” I recommend getting a hold of an audio of him reading it – I think I have one from a collection called “In their own voices’ from Rhino records. He reads the first page or two and it sounds awesome.