By love possessed

Lorna Gaye Goodison (born 1 August 1947) is a Jamaican poet, essayist and memoirist, a West Indian writer, whose career spans four decades. She is now professor emerita, English Language and Literature/Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, previously serving as the Lemuel A. Johnson Professor of English and African and Afroamerican Studies. She was appointed Poet Laureate of Jamaica in 2017 (succeeding Mervyn Morris), serving in the role until 2020. Goodison's 1986 book of poems, I Am Becoming My Mother, won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and her 2013 volume, Oracabessa, won the OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry. In addition to poetry, Goodison has published collections of short stories and essays, as well as the memoir From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her Island, which in 2008 was the recipient of one of Canada's largest literary prizes, British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, and in May 2009 was featured on BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week.