Walcott wins

At last, Derek Walcott has won the T S. Eliot Prize for poetry. Walcott’s latest collection, White Egrets, was described by chairman of the judges, Anne Stevenson, as a “moving, risk-taking and technically flawless book by a great poet; in the best traditions of the Eliot Prize.”

Walcott overcame some renowned competition – including his fellow Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney and Simon Armitage – to secure Britain’s most prestigious poetry award. The panel of judges is comprised of poets and academics, bestowing professional recognition on the winner, who also collects a handy cheque for £15,000.

Critics and reviewers concur that White Egrets is an exceptional work, sufficiently brilliant to compete with Omerus, Walcott’s seminal epic in homage to Homer. White Egrets is a meditation on age, decrepitude and death. The 81-year-old Walcott stalks between its imperious lines, conscious of his ‘withered’ powers and prescient of his impending demise. Its tone is final and the panel of judges lamented that it may prove to be ‘the last from the hand of the master’, which perhaps turned their judgement in the master’s favour – although they’ll be hoping that 71-year-old Heaney doesn’t drop off his perch first.