Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Lorna Goodison

Poetry Unbound

On Being Studios

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

4.9 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

“Spending time in hell is not my idea of something that one should do,” says poet Lorna Goodison, yet she immersed herself there for years to create her extraordinary modern Jamaican translation of Dante’s Inferno. We are thrilled to offer this conversation between Pádraig and Lorna, recorded as an online component of the Greenbelt Festival in England in 2025. She reads from her work, and together, they discuss Lorna’s inspiration for her underworld undertaking, how she found her Virgil, and why she calls The Inferno “bitter, necessary medicine for now.” We invite you to subscribe to Pádraig’s weekly Poetry Unbound Substack, read the Poetry Unbound books and his newest work, Kitchen Hymns, or listen to all our Poetry Unbound episodes.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi friends, Podrig Otuma here. Thank you very much for tuning in again to Poetry Unbound.
0:07.5	Season 10 starts on Monday the 12th of January. But for this week and next, we are bringing you what we're calling poetry Unbound in conversation. We'll have loads of these coming out over the next year.
0:19.0	Today, you'll hear the brilliant Lorna Goodison,
0:22.2	former poet laureate of Jamaica,
0:24.1	who takes us into the underworld
0:25.9	with her thrilling new translation of Dante's Inferno.
0:30.0	This was part of the Greenbelt Festival,
0:32.6	an annual festival of arts, activism and belief in England.
0:36.8	Greenbelt has an online component, too.
0:39.2	For this conversation, I was in the States and Lorna was in Canada.
0:43.7	A special thanks to Paul Northup, Jane Cuxson, Joanna Booth,
0:47.9	Stream 7, Christian Aid, and all the volunteers and staff and audience members
0:52.2	at the Greenbelt Festival.
0:53.9	Thanks too to Lorna Goodison
0:55.2	and her publishers, Vehicle Press and Carcannet Books. So welcome to Poetry Unbound in Conversation.
1:01.5	Here I am talking with Lorna Goodison. Hello, Greenbelt. It is so good to see you. I can see you clapping. And my heart is a little sad not to be at Greenbelt with you, but I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much to all of you for coming along. And I am thrilled to introduce you to Lorna Goodison.
1:26.5	Lorna Goodison was born in Kingston in Jamaica,
1:29.5	and she was a painter before she turned her focus to poetry.
1:32.8	She was educated at the Jamaica School of Art
1:35.0	and the School of the Arts Students League in New York City as well.
1:39.1	Lauren is the author of many books of poetry,
1:41.8	as well as the award-winning memoir from Harvey River. And she was appointed
	...

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