Curtis Sheppard Walker by decision. Walker was knocked out in nine rounds. Then Sheppard was knocked out in seven rounds by Perk Daniels on April 9, 1945. This was followed by a points loss at the hands of Jimmy Bivins. Sheppard then had consecutive wins over Nate Bolden, Johnny Allen, and Perkins in a rematch, before facing Jersey Joe Walcott again, and Archie Moore. He dropped decisions to Walcott and Moore, but Moore would later claim that, of all of his opponents, which included Bob Satterfield, Ezzard Charles, Rocky Marciano, Floyd Patterson, and Muhammad Ali, it was Sheppard who hit him the
Derek Walcott poem "Midsummer" (1984), he wrote: <poem> Forty years gone, in my island childhood, I felt that the gift of poetry had made me one of the chosen, that all experience was kindling to the fire of the Muse.</poem> At 14, Walcott published his first poem, a Miltonic, religious poem, in the newspaper "The Voice of St Lucia". An English Catholic priest condemned the Methodist-inspired poem as blasphemous in a response printed in the newspaper. By 19, Walcott had self-published his first two collections with the aid of his mother, who paid for the printing: "25 Poems" (1948) and "Epitaph for