In this episode of The Poetry Exchange, poet Nick Makoha talks with us about the poem that has been a friend to him: 'White Egrets (I)' by Derek Walcott.

Nick actually joined us back in 2017 at Pushkin House, London, and we are delighted to be sharing this conversation with you now. It is very special to hear Fiona in this conversation, with all her usual warmth and brilliance.

Nick Makoha's latest collection 'The New Carthaginians' is published this month from Allen Lane - you can order/buy your copy here.

The event for 'On the Brink of Touch' by Fiona Bennett is on 26th February at The Bedford in Balham, London, and live streamed. We'd love for you to join us, and you can book your places here!

Dr Nick Makoha is a Ugandan poet. His new collection is The New Carthaginians published by Penguin UK. Winner of the 2021 Ivan Juritz Prize and the Poetry London Prize. In 2017, Nick’s debut collection, Kingdom of Gravity, was shortlisted for the Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection and was one of the Guardian’s best books of the year. He was the ICA 2023 Writer-in-Residence. He was the 2019 Writer-in-Residence for The Wordsworth Trust and Wasafiri. A Cave Canem Graduate Fellow and Complete Works alumnus. He won the 2015 Brunel African Poetry Prize and the 2016 Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Prize for his pamphlet Resurrection Man. His play The Dark—produced by Fuel Theatre and directed by JMK award-winner Roy Alexander—was on a national tour in 2019. It was shortlisted for the 2019 Alfred Fagon Award and won the 2021 Columbia International Play Reading prize. His poems have appeared in the Cambridge Review, the New York Times, Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, Rialto, Poetry London, TriQuarterly Review, 5 Dials, Boston Review, Callaloo Birmingham Lit Journal and Wasafiri.

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White Egrets

By Derek Walcott

I

The chessmen are as rigid on their chessboard

as those life-sized terra-cotta warriors whose vows

to their emperor with bridle, shield and sword

were sworn by a chorus that has lost its voice;

no echo in that astonishing excavation.

Each soldier gave an oath, each gave his word

to die for his emperor, his clan, his nation,

to become a chess soldier, breathlessly erect

in shade or crossing sunlight, without hours –

from clay to clay and odourlessly strict.

If vows were visible they might see ours

as changeless chessmen in the changing light

on the lawn outside where bannered breakers toss

and palms gust with music that is time’s

above the chessmen’s silence. Motion brings loss.

A sable blackbird twitters in the limes.

From White Egrets by Derek Walcott, Faber & Faber 2010.

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