Accession MS COLL 00731 - J. Edward Chamberlin Papers

Lorna Gaye Goodison, born on August 1, 1947 in Kingston, Jamaica, is an internationally acclaimed author known chiefly for her poetry. She was educated at St. Hugh's High School (1958-66) and the Jamaican School of Art (1967-68) in Kingston, and at the School of the Art Student's League (1968-69) in New York. Goodison worked for the Jamaica Library service in the mid-1960s, and in the 1970s took a variety of jobs in advertising, public relations and promotions, and was a teacher of art and creative writing in Jamaica. Her first book of poetry, Tamarind Season, was well-received in Jamaica, but her second collection, I Am Becoming My Mother, brought her the 1986 Commonwealth Poetry Prize (Americas Region) and international recognition. She has subsequently published 12 books of poetry including: Heartease (1988), To Us, All Flowers are Roses (1995), Guinea Woman (2000), Travelling Mercies (2001), Goldengrove (2006) and Oracabessa (2013). She is also a well-known artist and has exhibited her paintings internationally and her work is often featured on the covers of her books. In 2017, Goodison was named the second official poet laureate of Jamaica.

J. Edward Chamberlin was born in Vancouver, and educated at the universities of British Columbia, Oxford and Toronto. Since 1970, he has been on the faculty of the University of Toronto, where he is University Professor Emeritus of English and Comparative Literature; but his interest in stories and songs has taken him around the world, to the hunters of the Kalahari and the herders of Mongolia as well as to the islands of the Caribbean, the England of Queen Victoria, and the wide-ranging literary and cultural traditions that have shaped the Americas. He was Senior Research Associate with the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and Poetry Editor of Saturday Night magazine, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society and an Officer of the Order of Canada. He has lectured widely on literary, historical and cultural issues; and his books include The Harrowing of Eden: White Attitudes Towards Native Americans (1975), Ripe Was the Drowsy Hour: The Age of Oscar Wilde (1977), Oscar Wilde’s London (1987), Come Back To Me My Language: Poetry and the West Indies (1993), If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? Finding Common Ground (2003), Horse: How the Horse Has Shaped Civilizations (2006); A Covenant in Wonder with the World: The Power of Stories and Songs (2012);and Island: How Islands Transform the World (2013).