<DIV>The essays collected in this issue offer complementary critical perspectives on the mature lyric work of Derek Walcott, the acclaimed Nobel laureate from the Caribbean island of St. Lucia. The centerpiece of the ensemble is a previously unpublished essay in which Walcott&rsquo;s reflections on poetics illuminate his project in the masterpiece, <I>Omeros.</I><BR>Other contributions by literary scholars in North America and the Caribbean focus on fundamental dimensions of Walcott&rsquo;s craft and on such thematic preoccupations as the intersection of pictorial and verbal modes of representation, the deployment of nuanced intertextual strategies (especially in relation to the Greco-Roman canon), the invention of a viable artistic identity in a postcolonial intercultural milieu, and the psychosocial modeling of the process of literary apprenticeship.</P><P><I>Contributors. </I>Edward Baugh, Peter Burian, Gregson Davis, Carol Dougherty, Joseph Farrell, Judith Harris, Timothy Hofmeister, Derek Walcott<BR></div>