SOURCE: A review of Selected Poems, in Parnassus: Poetry in Review, Vol. 18, February, 1992, pp. 452-57.

In the following excerpt, Lasher notes that although the song-like lyricism of Goodison's poetry is lovely, it sometimes detracts from the narrative aspect of her poetry.

In an Age of Walcott, Lorna Goodison's poetry of the last decade, long unavailable in the United States, shows that the voices of the Caribbean are many: It is likely that “the sum of the names we know now / is not equal to / the smallest glory that is you” (as Goodison describes the variety of names for God).

With a subtle feminist irony, Goodison calls her native Jamaica “my green-clad muse,” and weaves strands of Caribbean, African, and European poetic tradition into an original tapestry filled mostly with portraits of women—from Winnie Mandela to Cleopatra, from mermaids to housemaids. In “The Mulatta as Penelope” Goodison offers...