Collected Poems
Second Edition
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.
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.
About the author
Lorna Goodison was born in Jamaica, and has won numerous awards for her writing in both poetry and prose, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Musgrave Gold Medal from Jamaica, the Henry Russel Award for Exceptional Creative Work from the University of Michigan, and one of Canada's largest literary prizes, the British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction for "From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People" (2007). Her work has been included in the major anthologies and collections of contemporary poetry over the past twenty-five years, such as the "Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry", the HarperCollins "World Reader, the Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry", the "Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces", and Longman "Masters of British Literature".
Along with her award winning memoir, she has published three collections of short stories (including "By Love Possessed", 2011) and nine collections of poetry.
Her work has been translated into many languages, and she has been a central figure at literary festivals throughout the world. Lorna Goodison teaches at the University of Michigan, where she is the Lemuel A. Johnson Professor of English and African and Afroamerican Studies.
Along with her award winning memoir, she has published three collections of short stories (including "By Love Possessed", 2011) and nine collections of poetry.
Her work has been translated into many languages, and she has been a central figure at literary festivals throughout the world. Lorna Goodison teaches at the University of Michigan, where she is the Lemuel A. Johnson Professor of English and African and Afroamerican Studies.