At a time when one is still shaken by the death of Derek Walcott – the thought which diminishes us that he will never again decipher the beauty of the world for us – let us celebrate poetry – “the bread that lasts when systems have decayed.” And today I do so by recalling a poet whom Walcott loved – I remember talking with Walcott about him when Walcott visited Guyana a few years ago.
The poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins – glancing and incandescent – is among the most extraordinary to be found in English. The poetry is all the more striking because