Turn Thanks

The lyric energy, compassion, humor, and tenderness that characterize Lorna Goodison's work are once again in evidence in Turn Thanks, her seventh collection. Here the Jamaican poet turns to acknowledge her own ancestors and those of her craft: mother and father, aunts and uncles, Africa, William Wordsworth, Vincent Van Gogh, the Wild Woman. "Whether you will receive this letter or not I cannot tell," she writes. "Still, I intend to send it . . . "