The Bounty was Derek Walcott's first collection of poems after the 1990 publication of his epic Omeros. It is a book of many complex moods and ideas. The title poem establishes as much from the outset, being both an elegy, for the poet's mother, as well as something of a literary self-examination and canticle of praise for natural abundance. The poems that follow look at the poet's experience of Europe, Africa and his native Caribbean. They are marked by his characteristic ability to meet the world's multifariousness with a verse that is supple in its rhythms and syntax, and that proliferates with an inexhaustible gift for metaphor. A tribute to Derek Walcott's late friend and fellow Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Brodsky, ends the book.