“Walcott is a master of . . . easy, careless abundance.” —William Logan, The New York Times Book Review

“A prime aged Porterhouse steak, four times as thick as this slim volume, [could] not match the rich density of this new collection, the Nobel laureate's first since his epic Omeros. Walcott's lines are marbled with imagery worth savoring on the tongue before swallowing: 'burnt sheaves of tall corn / shriven and bearded in chorus.' He forges a connection between the human heart and the earth that is reminiscent of the best Irish poetry.” —Publishers Weekly

“Walcott has moved with gradually deepening confidence to find his own poetic domain, independent of the tradition he inherited yet not altogether orphaned from it . . . The Walcott line is still sponsored by Shakespeare and the Bible, happy to surprise by fine excess. It can be incantatory and self-entrancing . . . It can be athletic and demotic . . . It can compel us with the almost hydraulic drag of its words.” —Seamus Heaney

“[This is] Walcott's first collection of poems since he won the Nobel in 1992 . . . All the master's gifts are prodigally displayed here: an ear that finds liquid music in 'fast water quarrelling over clear stones,' a wit that sees death--the state of wordlessness--as 'beyond declension,' and an attentiveness that [notes how] squirrels 'spring up like questions'.” —Pico Iyer, Time