Sponsored by: Lois Potter
12 Lorna Goodison
On her previous Festival appearance, Jamaica-born poet and short story writer Lorna Goodison captivated
the audience with her personality and compelling stage presence. She read from her first work of non-fiction,
From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People. That book won the BC Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and was a finalist for the
Charles Taylor Prize for Non-Fiction. Her latest collection of short stories is By Love Possessed. The locations are exotic and the language is
sensuous and peppered with Creole patois, but the themes, mostly concerned with the foibles of human relationships, are universally recognizable. She is also the
author of eight volumes of poetry and has been called Jamaica’s most important living poet. She calls poetry “a dominating, intrusive tyrant…something
I have to do—a wicked force.”
Lorna Goodison divides her time between Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she teaches at the University of Michigan, and Halfmoon Bay, BC, where she
lives with her husband, writer and fellow academic, Edward Chamberlin.
Photo: Denis Valentine
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