Poetry Unbound in Conversation — Lorna Goodison

Podcast: Poetry Unbound (On Being Studios)
Host: Pádraig Ó Tuama
Guest: Lorna Goodison
Date: December 12, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of Poetry Unbound in Conversation features celebrated Jamaican poet Lorna Goodison in dialogue with host Pádraig Ó Tuama. The conversation centers on Goodison’s radical new translation of Dante’s Inferno, reimagined through a Jamaican vernacular and cultural lens. The episode explores Goodison’s decades-long fascination with Dante, the process and choices behind her adaptation, the centrality of Jamaican language and lineage, the importance of guides and companionship during times of darkness, and the resonance of Dante’s themes—exile, resistance, and community—in both personal and collective histories.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Encountering Dante and the Journey to Translation

• A Reluctant Translator:
  • Goodison recounts her initial reluctance to engage with the darkness of Dante’s Inferno ([02:39]):

    "I did not want to do this. Spending time in hell is not my idea of something that one should do."
    (Lorna Goodison, [02:39])

  • Her fascination began with Henry Holiday’s painting of Dante and Beatrice, which instilled a sense of being haunted by the work.
• Finding Her Entry Point:
  • Goodison’s breakthrough came by locating Dante’s “dark wood” in a contemporary Jamaican context:

    “Halfway Tree, the journey of our life found me there at midnight in the ramshackle state. ...Once I found my own place to begin from, then I just started on the journey.”
    (Lorna Goodison, [04:04])

2. Reimagining the Inferno in Jamaica

• Structural Choices and Personal Themes:
  • Goodison mirrors Dante’s journey through nine circles of hell but sets her journey in Jamaica, highlighting both universality and local specificity ([05:31]).
• Selection of the Guide:
  • Unlike Dante’s Virgil, Goodison’s guide is Louise Bennett (“Miss Lou”), iconic Jamaican poet and champion of Jamaican Creole:

    “She is the mother of Jamaican language. ...She would know everything about Dante’s project and she seemed a more appropriate and more fitting a guide.”
    (Lorna Goodison, [07:11])

3. Vernacular, Poetic Voice, and Identity

• Honoring Ms. Lou and Language:
  • Goodison and Bennett share roots; both their mothers were dressmakers, and both women saw value in the speech and stories of ordinary Jamaicans ([23:51], [25:29]).
  • The translation incorporates Jamaican English and Creole, rooted in Ms. Lou’s linguistic legacy:

    “It’s quite lovely, actually, the way we speak. And it’s legitimate and, you know… it’s good.”
    (Lorna Goodison, [10:45])

• On Dante’s Radical Use of Vernacular:
  • The episode draws parallels between Dante’s Italian and Goodison’s Jamaican Creole as political and poetic acts:

    “Dante’s Inferno...spelt the end of Latin, really. It introduced the vernacular Italian. ...It became the standard for written Italian.”
    (Pádraig Ó Tuama, [10:19])

4. Exile, Wandering, and Belonging

• Personal Reflections on Exile:
  • Goodison does not describe herself as “in exile” but acknowledges the theme’s centrality to Dante and her own life.

    “I think it’s poisoning the wells of somebody like me to say I’m in exile. ...So many people are in exile. So I don’t want to use that.”
    (Lorna Goodison, [13:25])

• The Lament of Displacement:
  • Ó Tuama references the Irish word for exile:

    “The Irish word...means to be in a state of tearfulness. So it speaks about a certain lamentation of...location.”
    (Pádraig Ó Tuama, [14:44])

5. Jamaican Re-Framing of Dante’s Hell

• Rastafarian Influence and Linguistic Choices:
  • Goodison incorporates Rastafarian language—“downpression” instead of “oppression,” “I and I and I”—to ground the translation in Jamaican cosmology ([16:10], [18:28]):

    “I am the way into the city of deep down pressure…let go off of all hope, all who come in here so.”
    (Lorna Goodison, [17:13])

• On the Pronoun 'I and I':
  • Explains its communal and metaphysical implications:

    “There’s no separation, there’s no I, you, one, I. ...Everyone is I and I and I and I.”
    (Lorna Goodison, [18:42])

6. Violence, Punishment, and Cautionary Tales

• Rendering Dante’s Brutality:
  • Goodison connects these depictions to West Indian stories, her mother’s cautionary tales, and the reality faced by the marginalized and exiled ([19:49], [21:32]).
• On the Seventh Circle—Violence (Reading, [21:51]):
  • Vivid, Jamaican-specific metaphors and links to historical trauma (Sam Sharpe, maroon warriors).

7. Women’s Spaces, Collective Healing, and Storytelling

• The Dressmaker’s Room as a Cultural Trove:
  • Both Goodison and Ms. Lou learned the art of storytelling in their mothers’ sewing rooms, where language, psychological support, and resistance found expression ([23:51], [25:29]):

    “We didn’t grow up in a system where you had psychologists or therapists...That was the therapy. ...That’s the conclusion she came to in her mind when she was like a little girl, a child.”
    (Lorna Goodison, [25:29])

8. Honoring Ancestry and Resistance—History from Below

• Inclusion of National Heroes and Unsung Figures:
  • Goodison lists Jamaican ancestors—Grandy Nanny, Sam Sharpe, Marcus Garvey, bush doctors—to “do history from below” ([28:35]).

    “There was Grandy nanny who stand up with a band of maroon warriors...bush doctors who identified our medicinal flora...Mother Penny heal the sick for copper.”
    (Lorna Goodison, [28:35])

9. Translation As Interpretation and Ongoing Discovery

• On the Process:
  • Extensive engagement with other English translations (“Mark Musa’s is really wonderful”; “A.S. Klein, which is a prose version”) but ultimately guided by intuition and internal musicality ([11:38], [38:28]).
• On Names and Free Association:
  • Goodison matches Italian names to Jamaican equivalents by sound and feeling, not force ([32:54]).

10. Teaching, Guidance, and Compassionate Companionship

• The Importance of Guides:
  • Both Dante’s Virgil and Goodison’s Ms. Lou exemplify the vital role of guides (teachers, companions) in dark times:

    “Any kind of consolation or hope or lifting up comes from the words...Very often that the guide says...how that can sometimes make or break somebody or give you a reason to hold on.”
    (Lorna Goodison, [35:29])

• Personal Story—Power of a Kind Word:
  • Ó Tuama shares a story about receiving compassionate advice during a period of confusion, underscoring the analogy with guides ([37:08]).

11. Consolation and Spiritual Traditions

• Hymns and Protection:
  • Goodison draws on the comforting power of hymns and religious song for psychological/spiritual resilience ([47:57], [49:52]):

    “You wrap yourself in words that you…think about the power of something like a hymn like that, you know…because I’m a great singer of hymns to myself. … His poems that are set are just the most beautiful, beautiful things ever.”
    (Lorna Goodison, [47:57])

• Consonance with Other Faith Traditions:
  • The adaptation is interlaced with influences from Anglicanism, Christianity, Rastafarianism, Islam, and a strong ecumenical sense.

12. Artistic Process and the Visual Imagination

• Painterly Sensibility:
  • Goodison’s training as a painter shaped her vivid, imagistic language in the translation ([42:33], [44:46], [44:59]).
  • She incorporates her own illustrations, allowing poetic and visual arts to cross-pollinate.

13. Cultural and Literary Resistance

• Anticolonial Reframing:
  • The translation not only resists European colonial frameworks but actively re-centers Jamaican experience and heroes ([31:12]):

    “It’s resistance of colonial ideas and telling something from the ground up and honoring those characters, ...also bush doctors who identified our medicinal flora. That’s about knowing the land and living and nurturing and caring for each other on the land.”
    (Pádraig Ó Tuama, [31:12])

14. Why Dante’s Inferno Matters Now

• Relevance to Contemporary Struggles:
  • Goodison sees Dante’s text as “vital…medicine, carminative, bitter, necessary medicine for now” ([20:29]).
  • Warns against consuming “too much of that terrible back and forth stuff”—echoing Dante and Ms. Lou on the dangers of poisonous narratives ([50:17], [51:52]).

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Reluctance and Inevitability:

  “I did not want to do this. Spending time in hell is not my idea of something that one should do. ...Eventually this would have had to happen.”
  (Lorna Goodison, [02:39])

• On Translation and Language:

  “I write in Jamaican English. I write it the way I speak, sort of...most of all by Ms. Lou’s project, which is just giving us permission to say, this is the way we speak. ...It’s legitimate and, you know. Yeah, it’s good.”
  (Lorna Goodison, [10:45])

• On ‘I and I and I’ and Rastafari:

  “There’s no separation, there’s no I, you, one, I. ...Everyone is I and I and I and I.”
  (Lorna Goodison, [18:42])

• On Guides in Darkness:

  “...Any kind of consolation or hope or lifting up comes from the words...Very often that the guide says…how that can sometimes make or break somebody or give you a reason to hold on.”
  (Lorna Goodison, [35:29])

• On Difficulties with Dante’s Categorizations:

  “I had to respect the project...but every now and again, I had to grumble. ...I really can’t figure out why you would do this. ...Why do we put these people in here?...”
  (Lorna Goodison, [26:42])

• On Translation Process:

  “Every time I did something like that, it was because it just worked. It chimed, it rhymed, it felt right. I had to just go with my feelings a lot. Well, all the time.”
  (Lorna Goodison, [33:00])

• On the Value of Stories in the Dressmaking Room:

  “We didn’t grow up in a system where he had psychologists or therapists...That was the therapy.”
  (Lorna Goodison, [25:29])

• On Prayer, Hymns, and Consolation:

  “You kind of wrap yourself in words that you…think about the power of something like a hymn like that... I love the words of Reverend George Herbert, ...his poems that are set are just the most beautiful, beautiful things ever.”
  (Lorna Goodison, [47:57])

• On the Contemporary Power of the Inferno:

  “I think this book is vital. I think it has medicine, carminative, bitter, necessary medicine for now. ...I don’t know if that makes any sense.”
  (Lorna Goodison, [20:29], [51:47])

Timestamps for Notable Segments

• [02:39] – Goodison’s initial reluctance and origin story of her Dante interest
• [04:04] – Locating Inferno in Jamaica: “Halfway Tree, the journey of our life…”
• [07:11] – Ms. Lou as guide; importance of vernacular
• [10:19] – Dante’s use of vernacular Italian; Goodison’s choice of Jamaican
• [13:25] – Goodison on the theme of exile
• [16:10] – The decision to localize iconic Dante lines (“Abandon hope…” → “let go off of all hope…”)
• [18:42] – The meaning and resonance of “I and I and I”
• [21:51] – Reading from Canto 14: describing violence and its connections to Jamaican history
• [25:29] – The dressmaker’s room as site of oral tradition and therapy
• [28:35] – Cataloguing Jamaican heroes in the Inferno
• [32:54] – The process of adapting names and sounds
• [35:29] – Role of the guide and the right word as consolation
• [41:29] – The visual imagination: painterly images and depictions of hell
• [47:57] – The hymn as comfort and spiritual resource
• [50:17] – The “poison” of toxic narratives, doom-scrolling, and finding help in the Inferno

Episode Takeaways

• This translation of Dante’s Inferno is a deeply Jamaican work, blending the structure and themes of the classic with Goodison’s personal history, poetics, and national consciousness.
• At its heart is a love for vernacular language, the belief in everyday storytelling as resistance and community-building, and a profound acknowledgment of the guide—teacher, friend, or ancestor—who helps us through the dark.
• Goodison’s work is both literary homage and radical reclamation, invested in honoring the “history from below,” giving dignity to language, and finding hope and healing in unlikely places—even hell.

(For more, read Lorna Goodison’s translation of Dante’s Inferno, available from Carcanet Books and Vehicule Press.)