Miss Lorna an Me

June 2025

A Reflection on Word Soul: The Lorna Goodison Edition

here love and possibility
within a lit heart, shining out. — Lorna Goodison, “I Shall Light a Candle to Understanding in Thine Heart Which Shall Not Be Put Out”

Lorna Goodison started out as just a name to me, one mentioned along with others at different times between 1978 and 1985, during my high school journey in English literature. I can’t recall actually studying any of her work during that period, but I did read a few of her poems on my own. I also recall my attention being drawn by how unusual the name “Goodison” was. At this point, she was a name and words on pages to me.

During my early days on the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies, circa 1986, Goodison came to do a lunch-hour reading at the Philip Sherlock Centre for the Performing Arts, and she read a story of hers called “I Come Through.” I hadn’t heard or experienced anything like that in person before then. The controlled yet engrossing way in which she read the story, the imagery, the poeticism unencumbered by the prose, and the way she painted vivid images from the protagonist’s story and journey, images that seemed to rise and hang like paintings in the air . . . Sometimes you experience a particular thing and you realize—sometimes while it is happening and sometimes after—that your life will never be the same. Experiencing Goodison reading “I Come Through” was one of those moments in my life. She was there in the flesh; her words leapt forth and took on form shaped by sound. She could no longer be just a name and words on a page to me.1

That experience led to the next stage of my Goodison journey. It is 1987: I am president of the University Dramatic Arts Society (UDAS), and I decide to do an evening of poetry and spoken word, which was quite unusual at the time. It is called “As Yet Untitled” because I have no idea what to call it, and I have been spellbound by a track with that title on Terrence Trent Darby’s debut album. Emboldened by my “I Come Through” baptism, I get a phone number and invited Lorna Goodison to be the featured guest performer. She blessed me by saying yes! She came, she read, an she dun di place! I thought she would read and leave, but she stayed for the whole show. Not only that, but when it ended, she came around to the front of the Philip Sherlock building and, standing beside The Actor (a timeless, ciment fondu statue by Winston Blake that keeps watch at the front of the center), she congratulated me, told me that I should be proud of myself and asked where I got the idea to do this kind of production. I told her that I had just wanted to do some poetry, something different to challenge the UDAS members and our audience. Her response was encouraging: 

Good for you. In your life you’re going to find nay-sayers, people who can’t see your vision, who don’t understand your artistic impulses or the muses that speak to you and who will try to talk you down or talk you out of your vision. Don’t pay dem no mind, don’t listen to them. Do what speaks to and resonates with you. This is a brave thing you’ve done and it was well done. Bless you, and I am glad I could be a part of it. 

My recollection of her words may not be exact, but the feeling they inspired remains with me and even did an encore as I wrote this. That was the moment when she became “Miss Lorna” to me.

Fast forward to 2016: I now get to share space with her, talk with her, email her and she responds. She is always so gracious and warm. That year, I decided that Tribe Sankofa (my performing arts collective) would focus on her work for our signature performance called Word Soul. This installment would be titled Word Soul: The Lorna Goodison Edition. I contacted her to let her know what I wanted to do. Not only was she flattered, she offered to send some unpublished poems about Anita “Margarita” Mahfood and Don Drummond, since her poem “For Don Drummond” was included in the performance.2 Unoo can imagine? Lorna Goodison seh shi ago sen har unpublish work to mi? Mi glad-bag did buss right open! As I read the poems (“Lament for Margarita,” “Woman a Come,” and “A hard loving man is called:”) I was struck by how they exemplified the recurring woman-centered gaze in her work and her commitment to making space for and giving voice to what women see, hear, feel and experience. Across her oeuvre, she has mastered the craft of poignantly sharing the world of women. For example, the way she powerfully captures our senses when she describes her mother—“brown/yellow woman / fingers smelling always of onions”—in one of her most popular poems, “I Am Becoming My Mother.”3 With these few words she not only shares the image of her mother, her complexion, but also the intimacy of the act of cooking, an expression of love.

I ambitiously decided that I wanted to fly Miss Lorna from her home in Canada to Kingston to watch the show. During the process, I got to know her husband, Ted, as well; in fact, Ted and I communicated more about the flight arrangements and my efforts to get sponsorship than Miss Lorna and I. Ted is a warm and charming man who became Mass Ted to me during this time. Eventually mi get a lickle sponsorship, used my own money to cover the balance, and was able to pay for Miss Lorna to attend the show in Jamaica. She took care of her own accommodation, graciously declining my offer to do so.

When I began working on the content for Word Soul: The Lorna Goodison Edition—moving the ideas that were in my head outward, staging them, incorporating the voices and bodies of my Tribers (the name used for members of Tribe Sankofa)—an interesting thing happened. I became aware of a spiritual synergy between my poetic and directorial imagination and Miss Lorna’s. It is best captured in something Professor Mervyn Morris said when we were recording his video clip to be used in the show: “I think the most distinctive quality in Lorna’s poetry, which is of course outstanding and internationally recognized as that, is the spiritual reach of her poetry.” This became increasingly clear as we moved from the page to the stage. During rehearsals and the performance there were moments when the atmosphere shifted, when there was an energy that was palpable. It was deeply moving, spiritual, and ancestral.

Another connection to Miss Lorna’s poetry that solidified for me during production was the “Jamaicanness” of her language. I love and relish in the Jamaican language, both as a speaker and a writer. I code switch, moving from standard English to forms of Jamaican language wherever I am, whatever the occasion. I was already aware of Miss Lorna’s combination of the two from my encounters with her as a student and when I began to teach her work, but this experience was heightened through the lens of director and devised theater practitioner. To quote Professor Morris again: “Many of our poets use both standard English and Jamaican Creole, but I don’t think anybody does it as seamlessly. That word I’m borrowing from Eddie Baugh, who many years ago wrote about the seamless sliding between standard English and Jamaican Creole.” I concur! It was a delight to hear Tribe Sankofa give voice to this seamless mastery.

Because I had been dreaming and fantasizing about this performance for more than a year, my direction and staging of the production flowed freely, imbued with passion and intensity. It felt like the most important artistic endeavor of my life up to that point. The cast comprised thirteen Tribers and two guest musicians (a trombonist and a drummer). Word Soul: The Lorna Goodison Edition was divided into four sections, punctuated by video clips about Miss Lorna and her work, and we performed nine of her poems, as well as a new arrangement of Margarita Mahfood’s song “Woman a Come.” My directorial approach to staging the nine poems drew from the ethos I honed with and in Tribe Sankofa, a process I call “Inside Out”: I start with the text, reading it closely and feeling it fully. I intentionally become present to my interpretation(s) and reaction(s). Then I begin exploring the historical, physical, cultural, political, and personal contexts of the work. Then I bring what I know of the writer into the frame. From here I craft a unique interpretation and resharing of the text that includes spoken word, movement, dramatization, vocals, and music. Word Soul: The Lorna Goodison Edition was the fullest and most evolved manifestation of my technique at that point in my journey and evolution as a director and dramaturg.

Excitement, anxiety, and anticipation heightened as our premiere night (17 December 2016) approached. Show night: Miss Lorna arrives with a sizeable group of friends and colleagues. She had declined my offer of complimentary tickets beyond two for her. After the performance, I bring her up on stage. She thanks us effusively. The accessory company Bresheh donated a custom-made tote bag, personalized with “Miss Lorna,” for her to use on campus. She loved it. My Tribers and I got to take photos with her. It was a red-letter night. Unforgettable. That production remains one of the proudest and most important achievements of my life.

Miss Lorna invited me to breakfast two days later. In between the mouthfuls of ackee and saltfish with fried dumpling and Blue Mountain coffee sweetened with condensed milk (with a tupps of salt), we chatted, laughed, and cried. She told me that sometimes, as a poet, you are not sure that the people you write for and about value your work. She said Tribe Sankofa had re-gifted her work to her with our respect for her poems and our interpretations. She then told me that the whole process—my conceiving and producing the show, exposing my youthful Tribe to her work, engaging her, taking time to call and email her and Ted, flying her down for the show—was the nicest thing anybody had ever done for her. This blew me away (and still does). At this point, I was in tears and moved beyond words. My brain was trying to process the fact that I was having breakfast with Lorna Goodison and she was thanking me for work she had inspired. I recalled and reminded her of our conversation outside the Philip Sherlock Centre years before. She smiled, squeezed my hand, and said, “I remember.” Shortly after she returned to Canada, she gifted me with one of her paintings.

Five months later she requested that Tribe Sankofa perform at her investiture as the second Poet Laureate of Jamaica. We were the only poetry/spoken-word performers on the program. We presented excerpts from Word Soul: The Lorna Goodison Edition, ending with a tribute I wrote to her. As I went up to the lectern, Miss Lorna was sitting in the front, with her son beside her. She was gripping his arm, tearing up and tapping her thigh. It felt good to honor and bless her in this way. It felt as if we had come full circle, but there was more in store.4 In 2018, Miss Lorna bought my book New Thought, New Words: A Collection of Gratitude Verses, Affirmations, and Spoken Word and read it—Miss Lorna was reading my book! She told me she planned to give it to her son because she thought he could use it at the time.5 

More collaboration followed: In 2022, she agrees to provide editorial feedback for Tribal Elements: A Tribe Ting, Volume 1 (a poetry chapbook by four members of Tribe Sankofa).6 In a Zoom meeting later that same year, after giving me feedback on one of my manuscripts, Miss Lorna tells me that she thinks that the work I do as a director and writer are important, deserving of a wide audience, and she affirms that I will find a publisher who recognizes what she describes as the “grace and healing” in my work. She, like the woman feeding and always urging her children to sip water in her poem “So Who Was the Mother of Jamaican Art?,” pledges her continued support and encourages me to keep writing.7 I did. I am still basking in the joy of her writing the foreword for my first full collection of poetry / spoken word, the solace of sound, published in March 2025.8 Miss Lorna has taken on the roles of ally, supporter and mentor, holding consciousness with and for me as she encourages me to ignore ceilings and “take wings” much like the mother in her iconic “The Woman Speaks to the Man Who Has Employed Her Son.”9

Lorna Gaye Goodison is an internationally acclaimed author of twelve award winning books of poetry, three books of short stories and a prize-winning winning memoir, as well as an accomplished painter. She is a national treasure and a gift to the world. To me, she is a ray of light. I will never tire of reading her work or hearing her perform. When shi touch di mic, it come een like church! Often eliciting murmurs and shouts of “Amen” and “Ase” from me and others within earshot.

Accidental and deliberate sharing of space and words have solidified our link, and I now, in awe and immense gratitude, am able to count her as a colleague, supporter, and source of love. I have been and continue to be affected, inspired, lifted up by the wondrous impact of her work and living legacy as a poet, wordsmith, storyteller, cultural steward, griot, and shaman. During a panel that I invited her to be part of in 2019, for the Bob Marley and His Music course I taught at the University of the West Indies, she told us that Bob, Miss Lou, and others were our avatars, encouraging us to claim, herald, and document them. I unreservedly place her in this category of Jamaican avatars as well. But when all is said and done, she will always be “Miss Lorna” to me.

Fabian M. Thomas is an adjunct lecturer, transformational trainer/facilitator, and life/corporate coach who has also made his mark across the arts as a performing arts specialist, director, writer, actor, and poet / spoken-word performer. He holds a BA in mass communication and literature (UWI, Mona) and an MA in public communication (Fordham University). He is the founder and artistic director of the performing arts collective Tribe Sankofa.


[1] Lorna Goodison, “I Come Through,” in Baby Mother and the King of Swords (Harlow: Longman, 1990), 12–17. The poem I use as an epigraph is found in Heartease (London: New Beacon Books, 1988), 7.

[2] Lorna Goodison, “For Don Drummond,” in Selected Poems (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995). Anita Mahfood was a Jamaican dancer, actress, and singer. She was called “the famous Rhumba queen” and headlined performances. She also wrote, sang, and performed reggae music, one of the first women in Jamaica to do so. Mahfood was murdered on New Year’s Day 1965 by her boyfriend, Don Drummond of the Skatalites.

[3] Lorna Goodison, “I Am Becoming My Mother,” in I Am Becoming My Mother (London: New Beacon Books, 1986), 38.

[4] In 2017, I remounted Word Soul: The Lorna Goodison Edition to be performed by five Tribers for Carifesta in Barbados.

[5] fabian m thomas, New Thought, New Words: A Collection of Gratitude Verses, Affirmations, and Spoken Word  (Fabian M. Thomas, 2018).

[6] fabian m thomas, Kayah, Rica G., and Susanna Blagrove, Tribal Elements: A Tribe Ting, Volume 1 (Fabian M. Thomas, 2022).

[7] Lorna Goodison, “So Who Was the Mother of Jamaican Art?,” in Controlling the Silver (Urbana: University of Illinois Press (2005), 15.

[8] fabian m. thomas, the solace of sound: a collection of poetry and spoken word (Independent VoYces Literary Works, 2025).

[9] Lorna Goodison, “The Woman Speaks to the Man Who Has Employed Her Son,” in To Us, All Flowers Are Roses Poems (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 51–52.

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