Lorna Goodison
| Lorna Goodison | |
|---|---|
| Born |
1 August 1947 Kingston, Jamaica |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Nationality | Jamaican |
Lorna Goodison CD (born 1 August 1947) is a Jamaican poet, a leading West Indian writer of the generation born after World War II, currently dividing her time between Jamaica and Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she teaches at the University of Michigan. Poet and literary scholar Edward Baugh says: "one of Goodison’s achievements is that her poetry inscribes the Jamaican sensibility and culture on the text of the world". Apart from issues of home and exile, her work also addresses the power of art to explore and reconcile opposites and contradictions in the Caribbean historical experience. Kei Miller notes, "Primarily a poet, Goodison hasn’t been afraid of crossing the fence into other genres: she has written short stories and a much-celebrated memoir. ...I suspect she still isn't as celebrated as she really ought to be because there simply doesn’t exist the perfect critical language to talk about what she is doing, the risks she is taking, and why exactly they succeed." Also a painter, Goodison has illustrated her own book covers, as well as exhibiting her artwork in Jamaica and the US.
Lorna Gaye Goodison was born in Kingston, Jamaica, one of nine siblings. She was educated at St. Hugh's High School, a leading Anglican high school in Jamaica, and studied at the Jamaica School of Art, before going on to the Art Students League of New York. As well as painting, she had also been writing poetry since her teenage years; some early poems appeared anonymously in the Jamaica Gleaner. Goodison has described poetry as "a dominating, intrusive tyrant. It's something I have to do — a wicked force".
In her twenties, back in Jamaica, she taught art and worked in advertising and public relations before deciding to pursue a career as a professional writer. She began to publish under her own name in the Jamaica Journal, and to give readings at which she built up an appreciative audience.
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