"I wanted to be a torch singer," says poet Lorna Goodison. "Sarah Vaughn, Nina Simone . . .their voices are in my work."
Thus, the selections that the award-winning Jamaican writer chose to share at the reading I attended last week where heavily influenced by music. Poems like "I Saw Charles Mingus" and "Apollo Double Bill" celebrate the jazz and R&B of the late sixties but also describe her experience as a woman in her twenties living in New York City, good AND bad.
She also read some very moving poetry dedicated to her son. My favorite lines came from "My Will," in Selected Works.
May you like me earn good
friends
but just to be sure,
love books.
image from a printed review of Goodison's memoir, From Harvey Road, via www.commarts.com
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