Collected Poems [Paperback]

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.

"What is the rare quality that has gone out of poetry that these marvellous poems restore? Joy." —Derek Walcott, Nobel Laureate Recipient of the following: Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Americas Region), Musgrave Gold Medal Order of Distinction from Jamaica, Henry Russel Award for Exceptional Creative Work from the University of Michigan, British Columbia National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction for From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People

Lorna Goodisonwas 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 forFrom Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People(2007).