Queen crowns Lorna Goodison with Gold Medal for Poetry

Jamaican Poet Laureate Lorna Goodison says she is “honoured and humbled” after she was announced the 2019 recipient of the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry yesterday.

She became the first-ever Jamaican to be awarded the distinction and was presented the medal by Queen Elizabeth II in an audience at Buckingham Palace in London.

“As one of a generation of Commonwealth writers whose engagement with poetry began with a need to write ourselves and our people into English Literature, I feel blessed,” Goodison said after the announcement.

“And as a Jamaican poet, who has always felt that my ancestors, too, are deserving of odes and praise songs and who did not see them in what I was given to read, I am glad that I set out to write these poems,” she said.

Goodison’s 30-year career has seen her publish 13 collections of poetry as well as a selection of short stories.

The Gold Medal for Poetry was established by King George V in 1933 and is awarded annually for excellence in poetry.

To be nominated, a potential recipient has to be from the United Kingdom within the Commonwealth realm.

Goodison is one of the Caribbean’s leading writers of the post-World War II generation.

She was inducted into the Order of Distinction, Commander class, in 2013, and currently teaches at The University of the West Indies. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Jamaica in 2017, succeeding Mervyn Morris.

Goodison earlier this year received the 2018 RJRGLEANER Honour Awards Lifetime Achievement Award in the Category of Arts and Culture for her role in literacy excellence.