MERVYN MORRIS was the 2014-2017 Poet Laureate. He has published seven books of poetry:
his Collected Poems. Recordings of him reading include a CD by the Poetry Archive, London (2011). He is the author of ‘Is English We Speaking’ and Other Essays (1999), Making West Indian Literature (2005) and Miss Lou: Louise Bennett and Jamaican Culture (2014) and has edited many books, including Louise Bennett Selected Poems (1982) and It A Come by Michael Smith (1986, 1989). Born in Kingston in 1937, he studied at Munro College (1948-54), the University College of the West Indies (1954-57) and, as a Rhodes Scholar, at St Edmund Hall, Oxford (1958-61). He worked at the University of the West Indies, Mona, for more than thirty years, retiring in 2002 as Professor of Creative Writing and West Indian Literature. He was awarded Jamaica’s Order of Merit in 2009. In 2018 St Edmund Hall appointed him an Honorary Fellow and he received a Gold Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica.
An acclaimed foremother of Canadian Poetry and a long-time arts activist, she was bestowed an honourary doctorate by…
Edward Baugh is Professor Emeritus of English, UWI, Mona. He holds the degrees of BA Hons.
Delores Gauntlett born in St. Ann, Jamaica, the author of The Watertank Revisited (2005), and Freeing Her Hands to Clap (2001)
Goodison’s image-rich and socially- and historically-engaged poems often inhabit the lives and landscapes of her Jamaican homeland
Ishion has taught poetry through workshops in the US, Caribbean, the UK, Europe, Australia and Africa…
Linton Kwesi Johnson was born on 24 August 1952 in Chapelton in Clarendon in rural Jamaica. He came to London in 1963…
From Jamaica, and born to a Jamaican father and Venezuelan mother, Shara McCallum is the author of six books of poetry…
Her second poetry collection, KINGSTON BUTTERCUP (Peepal Tree Press: 2016) made the poetry shortlist of the Bocas Prize.
Pamela Mordecai has published nine collections of poetry, She has also published/co-published numerous…
Mervyn Morris was the 2014-2017 Poet Laureate. He has published seven books of poetry…
Hailed by his colleagues as ‘Original’ and acknowledged by listeners and critics as the original Dub Poet, he is accredited…
Geoffrey Philp is the author of two short story collections, two novels, three children’s books, and eight books of poetry
Kwame Dawes is the author of numerous books of poetry and other books of fiction, criticism, and essays
Olive Senior is the Poet Laureate of Jamaica 2021-2024. She is the prizewinning author of books of poetry…
Safiya Sinclair was born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She is the author of Cannibal, winner of a Whiting…
Velma Pollard is a retired Senior Lecturer in Language Education in the School of Educational of the University of…
Opal Palmer Adisa, Ph. D, diverse and multi-genre, writes, poetry, prose, essays & plays…
Poet Laureate 2021-2024
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