Forty Acres: Walcott's Poem For Obama

Out of the turmoil emerges one emblem, an engraving —
a young Negro at dawn in straw hat and overalls,
an emblem of impossible prophecy, a crowd
dividing like the furrow which a mule has ploughed,
parting for their president: a field of snow-flecked cotton
forty acres wide, of crows with predictable omens
that the young ploughman ignores for his unforgotten
cotton-haired ancestors, while lined on one branch, is a tense
court of bespectacled owls and, on the field's receding rim...
[continue...]

I've been told many times, directly and indirectly, notably by Geoffrey and Rustum, both of whom I admire much, that if I read anything, then I must let it be Walcott. This poem is another reason why.

If reading Walcott could do for me what it may have done to their capacities as poets, things would be easy, albeit pointless. Instead, I think what they meant and mean by the suggestion, is that Walcott is a major voice from which we can branch off into our own, as offered by all important voices.

Reading this poem, I'm re-astonished at how Mr Walcott uses imagery, and especially how he combines imagery with validity. I mean to say that his images are valid and not haphazard, which strengthens them all the more. How else could this have been stronger?

a crowd
dividing like the furrow which a mule has ploughed,
parting for their president

You talk about slavery and cotton-picking, use the plough image to back your statement up. It's much stronger and does not lead the reader away from what you're trying to say. I have seen this run through many poems of Derek Walcott (see for yourself), whom I'm happy to claim as a favourite poet, too.

John Agard's poem isn't irrelevant in the case of this American election.