Writing on Lorna Goodison’s poetry, Derek Walcott asks ‘What is the rare quality that has gone out of poetry that these marvellous poems restore? Joy.’ Goodison has served as the Poet Laureate of Jamaica and published twelve volumes of poetry; her Collected Poems came out from Carcanet in 2017. In 2019, she won the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.
Linton Kwesi Johnson is one of the only three poets to be published as a Penguin Modern Classic while still alive; his collections include Inglan is a Bitch, Tings an’ Times, and Mi Revalueshanary Fren.
Johnson and Goodison were in conversation.
