Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In "Bounty: 2", Derek Walcott continues the meditative tone of the preceding section, engaging with themes of loss, grief, and poetry's role in capturing sorrow. The poem deepens its reflection on death, memory, and the interplay between the natural world and the creative process, using rich imagery and allusions to both the natural landscape of the Caribbean and the figure of the English poet John Clare. Walcott's tone, though sorrowful, is laced with a sense of stoicism, as he grapples with how to contain grief within the formal boundaries of poetry.

The poem opens with an image of a "dark well" lying on the beach, a metaphor for the place where the speaker's life, symbolized by a rose, has been lowered. This evokes the depth of sorrow and memory, suggesting that the well is a repository for the speaker's loss, perhaps the memory of his mother, whose death is a recurring theme in "Bounty". The imagery of "shaken plants" and "a pool of fresh tears" captures the rawness of grief, while the tolling "golden bell of allamanda" and the "thorns of the bougainvillea" introduce the duality of beauty and pain—nature itself becomes a witness to this grief, its bounty shining "with defiance" even in the face of suffering.

The poem quickly shifts into a philosophical reflection on nature's indifference. The sun rises with all its power, not for human constructs like the "Tourist Board" or even for the literary great Dante Alighieri, but because "there is no other path for its wheel to take." This speaks to the inevitability of natural cycles—grief, like the rising sun, is part of an unstoppable rhythm that is beyond human control. The beach road becomes an allegory for the poet's career, representing the difficult, winding path of artistic expression, while also acknowledging the burden of writing about loss and memory.

Walcott invokes John Clare, the 19th-century English poet whose work was marked by his deep connection to nature and his struggles with mental illness. Clare’s sensitivity to the natural world, to the point of weeping for the loss of a beetle, represents a kind of extreme empathy, a grief so profound that it encompasses even the smallest creatures. In contrast, Walcott acknowledges his own grief but resists letting it "madden" him, recognizing the need for restraint. While Clare's overwhelming sorrow led him to madness, Walcott seeks to channel his grief into measured, controlled poetry, even as he expresses frustration with the form: "the fire in these tinder-dry lines of this poem I hate as much as I love her."

This tension between love and hatred for the art of poetry reflects Walcott's struggle to find a balance between personal sorrow and the formal constraints of elegy. The poem must bear the weight of the speaker’s grief, but it must not become unmanageable or consume him entirely. The lines grow, and poetry, by its very nature, hardens the speaker against the rawness of his sorrow. Yet, even as the poem imposes a kind of order on grief, it cannot fully contain the emotion—the poem resists the speaker’s attempts to fully subdue it.

The final lines of the poem return to the figure of Clare, described as the "redeemer of mice" and the "earl of the doomed protectorate of cavalry." Clare, with his deep empathy and his profound connection to the smallest aspects of the natural world, becomes a symbol of the poet’s mission: to redeem even the smallest, most overlooked lives and losses. Yet Walcott, exhausted by the weight of this responsibility, ends the poem with a gesture of finality: "come on now, enough!" This abrupt conclusion underscores the difficulty of continuing to engage with grief and memory in poetry—it is both necessary and, at times, overwhelming.

"Bounty: 2" is a complex reflection on the nature of grief, memory, and poetry. Walcott explores the tension between the personal and the universal, the beauty and the pain of the natural world, and the challenges of capturing deep sorrow within the constraints of formal poetry. Through his allusions to John Clare and his rich natural imagery, Walcott creates a layered meditation on how we process loss, both as individuals and as artists.

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