Redemption Ground
Page 14
And then there is the other woman writer whose work I admire greatly and whom I’d always hoped to meet. I remember feeling really pleased when I received an invitation to a luncheon in her honour, but once our eyes made four, as Jamaicans say, I could tell she was not happy to see me, and during the course of that lunch she sent out enough signals for me to know that she really did not want me around.
Now this could, in some weird way, have been regarded as a compliment, because the fact that one of the world’s most successful writers was actually sufficiently aware of my work, to the extent that she could be all but be cutting her eye after me and saying things like ‘All flowers are NOT roses,’ which could only mean that she had read, or read about, my poem ‘To Us, All Flowers are Roses’. I guess if ever I am interviewed by someone who asks, ‘When did you realise that your work was well-known?’ I could say, ‘When x took issue with the title of one of my poems.’
But after that meeting, I decided that I no longer want to keep a list of people I’d like to meet. I’ll just see who comes along and stay open to being surprised by joy.
Original Sources and Permissions
My grateful thanks to Evan Jones for his kind permission to quote extensively from ‘The Song of the Banana Man’.
In ‘Some poems that made me’, the quote from ‘The Port of Many Ships’ is by permission of the Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of John Masefield. The lines from ‘A Careful Passion’ by the wonderful Derek Walcott are quoted by very kind permission of his daughters Anna and Lizzie Walcott.
The ‘Nadine Gordimer Memorial Lecture’ was delivered at the 5th African Women Writers Symposium as part of Arts Alive International Festival, Johannesburg, South Africa, 2017. With thanks to Roshnie Moonsammy. Published in City Press, South Africa and Carcanet Blog.
‘Redemption is the Key’ was commissioned for the 2014 International Forum on the Novel, Villa Gillet, Lyon, France.
‘Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise’ was specially commissioned by editor/poet Jeffrey Johnson for ‘Stars Shall bend Their Voices’, Poets, Favourite Hymns and Spiritual Songs, forthcoming from Orison Books.
‘The Caribbean imaginary’ is adapted from a talk given at NYU.
‘My Painted Skirt Like A Scenic 78’ first appeared in PALAVER magazine, edited by Michael Jarrett.
‘For Derek Walcott’ was published in Review 95: Literature and Arts of the Americas edited by Dan Shapiro.
‘For Keith Jarrett Rainmaker’ is adapted from a talk given at 50th Anniversary of International Writing Programme, Iowa City, Iowa.
Acknowledgements
To my son Miles, with love. All day all night.
To my brothers, Keith, Karl, Kingsley, Howard and Nigel, for all their kindness and support over these many years.
Sincere thanks to Hugh Hodges for being such a good friend and generous reader of my work.
To Margaret Busby, Candida Lacey, Dawn Sackett, Lydia Cooper and Linda McQueen for making this book into a book.
To Swithin Wilmot for information on Redemption Ground Market.
To Asif Khan, for the author photo taken with his phone!
To Edward Baugh and Hilary Beckles of the U.W.I. Mona.
To Michael Schmidt and Carcanet for all they do for my poems.
To Petrona Morrison, Errol Moo Young and Tony Robinson for over forty years of friendship.
To Donna Singh, who told me thirty years ago that I should write a book of essays.
To Ted, for always believing in this work.
About the Author
LORNA GOODISON is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica, and a major figure in world literature. Her many awards include the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, the Musgrave Gold Medal from Jamaica, one of Canada’s largest literary prizes for From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People, and the Windham Campbell Prize for Poetry from Yale University. She has published three collections of short stories, including By Love Possessed, and ten collections of poetry. Her Collected Poems was published in 2017. She is Professor Emerita at University of Michigan, where she was the Lemuel A. Johnson Professor of English and African and Afroamerican Studies.
Copyright
First published in 2018 by
Myriad Editions
www.myriadeditions.com
Myriad Editions
An imprint of New Internationalist Publications The Old Music Hall, 106–108 Cowley Rd, Oxford OX4 1JE
Copyright © Lorna Goodison 2018
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Every attempt has been made to obtain the necessary permissions for use of copyright material. If there have been any omissions, we apologise and will be pleased to make appropriate acknowledgement in any future edition.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN (pbk):978–1–912408–13–9
ISBN (ebk): 978–1–912408–14–6
Designed and typeset in Palatino by WatchWord Editorial Services, London