POET LAUREATE OF JAMAICA
2014-2017
Professor Emeritus Mervyn Morris, OM
POETRy
Mervyn Morris
Emeritus Mervyn Morris
On April 15, 2014, Professor Emeritus Mervyn Morris, OM, was announced as Jamaica’s first Poet Laureate since Independence. Poet Laureate Morris was officially invested by His Excellency The Governor-General, the Most Hon. Sir Patrick Allen, ON, GCMG, CD, KSt.J.
Lorna Goodison CD
Poet Laureate 2017-2020
MERVYN MORRIS was born in Kingston in 1937. He studied at Munro College, the University College of the West Indies and, as a Rhodes Scholar, at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. From 1966 until 2002 he was on the staff of the University of the West Indies, retiring as Professor of Creative Writing and West Indian Literature. He received the Order of Merit in 2009.
His books of poems are The Pond, Shadowboxing, Examination Centre (New Beacon Books, London), Vestiges (a limited edition, Erlangen), On Holy Week (Dangaroo Press, Sydney) and I been there, sort of: New and Selected Poems (Carcanet, Manchester, 2006). In 1976 the Institute of Jamaica awarded him a silver Musgrave Medal for poetry. In 2011 the Poetry Archive, London, produced a CD of Mervyn Morris Reading from his Poems. He has given poetry readings in many countries and has conducted poetry workshops in the Caribbean, the United States of America, and the United Kingdom.
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 (Ian Randle Publishers, Kingston, 2014).
Books he has edited include Selected Poems by Louise Bennett, It A Come by Michael Smith and After-image by Dennis Scott. He co-edited Jamaica Woman, an anthology of poems by Jamaican women who had not yet published individual collections, and Voiceprint, an anthology of oral and related poetry from the Caribbean.
Poems by Mervyn Morris:
Peelin’ Orange
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=14626
Casanova
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=14632
Little Boy Crying
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=14633
A Chant against Death
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=14778
Interview with Poet Laureate, Mervyn Morris on RJR’s ‘Jamaica Morning’
Click to view the Mervyn Morris Bibliography