Mervyn Morris

Mervyn Eustace Morris OM (Jamaica) (born 1937) is a poet and professor emeritus at the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica.

Biography

Mervyn Morris was born in Kingston, Jamaica, and studied at the University College of the West Indies and as a Rhodes Scholar at St Edmund Hall, Oxford. In 1992 he was a UK Arts Council Visiting Writer-in-Residence at the South Bank Centre. He lives in Kingston, Jamaica, where he is Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing & West Indian Literature. Morris has taught at the University of the West Indies since the 1960s.^[1]

In 2009, Morris was awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit.

Works

Morris has published several volumes of poetry, and has edited the works of other Caribbean writers. His collections include The Pond (revised edition, New Beacon Books, 1997), Shadowboxing (New Beacon Books, 1979), Examination Centre (New Beacon Books, 1992) and On Holy Week (a sequence of poems for radio, Dangaroo Press, 1993). He also edited The Faber Book of Contemporary Caribbean Short Stories and published Is English We Speaking, and other essays. In 2006 Carcanet Press published his I been there, sort of: New and Selected Poems.^[2]

The best known poems by Morris include: "Little Boy Crying", "Family Pictures", "Love Is", "One, Two", "Home", "The Roaches", "The Pond" and "Critic".

Notes

1. ↑ Carcanet Press - Mervyn Morris
2. ↑ Carcanet Press - I been there, sort of

References

• A review of Morris in the Caribbean Review of Books

External links

• "Mervyn Morris", The Poetry Archive.