Redemption Ground
Essays and Adventures
This enlightening, entertaining, profoundly political and poetic gathering of essays by the Poet Laureate of Jamaica covers a wealth of subjects, from the odd dissociation of a colonial education to the reality of life in the wider world, the singing of hymns in school and the way their words stay with us, to the many influences--music, art, storytelling, theatre, cinema, travel, religion, family life and politics--that nurture our imaginations and her own writing voice. Taking her title from Kingston's oldest market and downtown meeting place that was almost destroyed by fire last year, Lorna Goodison introduces us to an extraordinary cast of characters and range of influences--from finding a black hairdresser in Paris and crying at a movie in Jamaica to having a life-changing epiphany in New York's Bottom Line Club or drinking tea with an old friend and new strangers in London's Marylebone High Street.
Lorna Goodison is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica and a major figure in world literature.
She is the author of nine collections of poetry, three collections of short stories and an award-winning memoir, From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People. Her Collected Poems was published in 2017. Redemption Ground: Essays and Adventures is her first collection of essays and was published by Myriad in August 2018.
Her many awards include the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Musgrave Gold Medal from Jamaica and the Windham Campbell Literature Prize. Her work is included in major anthologies of contemporary poetry and has been translated into many languages. She is a central figure at literary festivals throughout the world.
Born in Jamaica, Lorna Goodison now lives in Canada. She is Professor Emerita at the University of Michigan, where she was the Lemuel A. Johnson Professor of English and African and Afroamerican Studies. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Jamaica in 2017, a position she will hold until 2020.
