New Voices: Selected by Lorna Goodison, Poet Laureate of Jamaica, 2017-2020

New Voices is a collection of the prize-winning and shortlisted works of the Poet Laureate of Jamaica Prizes for Poetry from 2017 to 2020, selected by Lorna Goodison. The poets featured here are new and emerging voices in the Jamaican literary landscape. Hailing from different backgrounds, they engage with a variety of subjects, public and personal, writing in both Jamaican language and standard English.

From domestic dramas, to a praise song to a simple soup, to realities of life in Kingston’s inner cities, these poems welcome the reader to step into new and vivid worlds as poets contemplate issues of place, identity, and universal human experiences of love and loss.

We proudly introduce these new voices – fresh and full of promise. In the words of respected literary scholar Professor Jahan Ramazani, “To read works by such a talented young group of emerging writers gave me hope for the future of poetry.”