A small audience who came together for the virtual launch of Olive Senior’s Hurricane Watch: New and Collected Poems was on May 24 treated to the Jamaica Poet Laureate reading her work.

The event, which was hosted by The Department of Literatures in English (DLIE), The University of the West Indies, Mona and the University Bookshop, included a lively discussion with the poet, featuring Jamaican favourites Owen ‘Blakka’ Ellis and Ann Margeret Lim, and facilitated by Dr Aisha Spencer, acting Head of Department in the DLIE.

All-comers to poetry can view the event via The Department of Literatures in English (The UWI Mona) YouTube channel.

Hurricane Watch is a compilation of the complete text of Olive Senior’s four books of poetry plus Eyed, new and uncollected poems.

FAVOURABLE ATTENTION

Since its publication in the UK in February by Carcanet, Hurricane Watch has garnered much favourable attention.

A UK reviewer listing it among six of the “best recent poetry” noted that “Senior, currently poet laureate of Jamaica, has been producing poetry of beauty and historical resonance for nearly four decades. Hurricane Watch shows her continually remaking the story of cultural exile and belonging. That she plunders a range of traditions to do so itself tells that story.”

Students of the Caribbean and elsewhere will find favourite poems in the collection as Senior’s poems have been taught in schools and universities for many years, including the CAPE and International Baccalaureate syllabi. Her poems have been widely translated and anthologised and recordings can be heard in The Poetry Archive in the UK and the newly established Jamaica Poetry Archive.

Hurricane Watch: New and Collected Poems (UK: Carcanet) is available at UWI Bookshop in Kingston Jamaica and wherever good books are sold.