Lorna Goodison — Reporting Back to Queen Isabella

Poetry Unbound

On Being Studios

Relationships, Society & Culture, Spirituality, Arts, Religion & Spirituality, Books

4.9 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2021

⏱️ 13 minutes

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Summary

In Lorna Goodison’s imagined scene, Spain’s Queen Isabella receives the ‘report’ of the discovery of Xamaica from Christopher Columbus, an Italian man who was financed by the Spanish court to ransack foreign lands. Lorna Goodison is the former Poet Laureate of Jamaica, and in this tight, terse poem, she’s the explorer: exploring practices of colonization, finance, power and administration. With pomp and ceremony she describes a scene that was as vacuous as it was dangerous.

Transcript

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0:00.0	My name is Podrigo Tumba and one of the things I love about poetry is reading poetry
0:07.7	from different parts of the world.
0:09.0	So often the so-called canon highlights poets, often male poets from just one part of
0:14.5	the world or just a few.
0:16.2	But I wanted to read poems about the world that were written from the point of view of
0:20.5	the people who lived through them, not just the people who were from the countries that
0:24.7	colonized.
0:31.5	Reporting back to Queen Isabella by Lorna Goodeson
0:36.8	When Don Gristobal returned to a hero's welcome, his caravels corked with treasures of the
0:43.2	new world.
0:44.4	He presented his findings, told of his great adventures to Queen Isabella, whose speech
0:51.0	set the gold standard for her nation's language.
0:55.4	When he came to Jamaica, he described it so.
0:59.0	The fairest aisle that eyes ever beheld.
1:02.9	Then he balled up a big sheet of parchment, unclenched and let it fall off a flat surface
1:09.9	before it landed at her feet.
1:12.9	There we were, massifs, high mountain ranges, expansive plains, deep valleys, one he'd
1:20.5	christened for the Queen of Spain.
1:23.2	Over abundance of wood, over 100 rivers, food and fat pastures for Spanish horses, men
1:31.5	and cattle.
1:33.2	And yes, your majesty, there were some people.
1:46.6	So for 2019, I decided I was going to read everything that Lorna Goodeson has written.
	...

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