You're not part of this "certain readership" I was referring to, MA, and you shouldn't take it personally. You and I have discussed our similarities and differences in tastes for a few years now, and you should know that I respect both your tastes and intelligence. My point is that Walcott appeals largely to folks who read much poetry, and certainly not those who read what's happening in the small presses, which is where the really interesting stuff is to be found. His style is over done composed for those who like the rhetoric rich and hyper qualified and which will pour over them like a warm shower ; there's nothing wrong with a warm showers, in themselves, but that isn't my idea of the point of reading. His poems make no psychic screws loosen, make no cogs come undone, cause no perceptual breakthrough. Billy Collins caters to the same audience, but I at least like Collins and admire his mastery of craft if not his depth. There are are few surface effects he's great at, and he has a lack of pretension that 's appealing.