For its 30th annual Maurice Brown Memorial Poetry Reading, Oakland University will welcome Jamaica’s Poet Laureate Lorna Goodison to campus. The event will be held from 5:00 – 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, October 24 in the Oakland Room of the Oakland Center.
Goodison is the author of numerous poetry collections, including “Tamarind Season,” “I am Becoming My Mother,” – which received the Commonwealth Poetry Prize – “Controlling the Silver,” and most recently, “Collected Poems,” which was published in 2017.
She is also the author of two collections of short stories, and a memoir, “From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her People,” which won the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction. Her poetry celebrates the language and lives of Jamaica’s landscape and history, often focusing on women’s social and cultural roles. One of her best-known poems, “For My Mother (May I Inherit Half Her Strength),” praises her mother’s love of words and remarkable domestic skills.
A member of the Jamaican National Commission to UNESCO, Goodison was awarded Jamaica’s Musgrave Gold Medal in 1999.
The Maurice Brown Memorial Poetry Reading is sponsored by the Oakland University Department of English and the Creative Writing program as a tribute to Professor Maurice F. Brown, who taught at Oakland from 1961 until his death in 1985.
In addition, the lecture is also supported by Dr. Brown’s wife, Dr. Judith K. Brown, distinguished professor emerita of Anthropology, and the Judd Family Endowed Fund at Oakland.
The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. For more information, contact Oakland’s Department of English at (248) 370-2250.