Lorna Goodison – författare

Writing in The Hudson Review,David Mason has characterized Lorna Goodison's work as a "revelationto me, much of it beautiful for its simple negotiation of the line betweenlife and art."One of the most distinguishedcontemporary poets of the Caribbean, Goodison draws on both African andEuropean inheritances in her finely crafted poems, which often carry asense of language's healing power in the face of the pain of the past.She deals thematically with the struggle of Caribbean women and writesin a fashion that has developed from conversational to more ritualistic.From reviews of Goodison'searlier works:"The evocative powerof Lorna Goodison's poetry derives its urgency and appeal from the heart-and-mindconcerns she has for language, history, racial identity, and gender."Andrew Salkey -- World Literature Today"A marvelous poet, oneto savor and to chant aloud."-- Pat Monaghan, Booklist

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 . . . "

Renowned poet Lorna Goodison has written a new collection of elegies and praise songs which explore the close link between history and genealogy in the Caribbean experience. Her subjects range from the economic genius of market women to the complex beauty of the natural world.

A selection of poems by Lorna Goodison, who in 2017 was named Poet Laureate of Jamaica.

The Collected Poems (Second Impression) of Jamaica's Poet Laureate (2017-2020) and winner of The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2019. Lorna Goodison is a poet alive to places, from the loved and lived-in world of Jamaica where she began and started a family, to the United States and Canada where she has made her teaching career, but always re-connecting with her Caribbean roots. She travels with an ear alert to histories and voices. How differently English sounds in the tropics and in colder lands, at seaside in sunlight and on prairies, mountains and in cities. The same words say quite different things, depending on who speaks them and who's listening, obeying or resisting. She covers a wide range of subjects and themes, too. Her instinct is to celebrate being alive in a world that is rich but in peril. `And what is the rare quality that has gone out of poetry that these marvellous poems restore?' asks Derek Walcott. `Joy.' The `mango of poetry', eaten straight from the tree, Goodison somehow finds growing in Wordsworth country and in Sligo, in Russia and Norway, in Spain and Portugal which spilled their empires into the Caribbean, in Cape Town and Far Rockaway.

Finalist for the Governor General Literary Awards 2025Shortlisted for the OCM Bocas Lit Prize for Caribbean Literature 2026Longlisted for the Jhalak Poetry Prize 2026'Halfway tree. The journey of our life found me / there at midnight in a ramshackle state.' So begins Lorna Goodison's astonishing new translation of The Inferno by Dante, a poet she once described as 'uncompromising as an Old Testament prophet, stern as a Rastafarian elder'.This Jamaican Dante, a quarter-century in the making, is as much transformation as it is translation: the poet's narrator, its Dante figure, is now guided through an underworld by Goodison's great Jamaican predecessor Louise Bennett, 'Miss Lou' in the book. Goodison draws on the entire continuum of Jamaican speech yet securely grounds the action in Dante's formal architecture, bringing an entire world to life: we encounter other poets, including Goodison's friend Derek Walcott, as well as Caribbean politicians, reggae innovators and other public figures. Here, she recreates the journey through the 'unpaved and rocky road' of Dante's Hell for a contemporary audience and attempts to do for Caribbean vernacular what Dante did for his Italian language in the fourteenth century - endow it with an entirely new vocal music and power.