How do these love poems, “Bleecker Street, Summer” and “The Fist,” compare with other love poems you’ve read?

Walcott’s love poems, “Bleecker Street, Summer” and “The Fist” are very different compared to the typical love poems that we have read in the past. These poems highlight the darker and negative aspects of love that demonstrate the pain that love can make you feel. Specifically, in “The Fist” he uses a fist to represent the hold that love has on people and how oftentimes, it can be terrorizing. He describes the feeling like there is a fist around the heart that makes it hard to breathe. Additionally, Walcott’s poems represent love poems that are not necessarily dedicated to a person but to other things. For instance, Walcott’s “Bleecker Street, Summer,” describes Walcott’s love for Manhattan during the summertime. Walcott’s poem once again includes the negative aspects of love with his bittersweet relationship. His appreciation for manhattan is undermined by the uncolorful aspects of Manhattan with “the smell of water down littered streets that lead you to no water.” This clearly demonstrates how Manhattan is not as fruitful as it may seem. While talking about the negatives of Manhattan, Walcott looks back to an island that he misses, that Manhattan cannot compare to.