Arrowsmith Press, in cooperation with the Derek Walcott Festival and Derek Walcott Estate, has named The Inferno by Lorna Goodison winner of the 2026 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry. Honoring the work of St. Lucian Nobel Prize poet Derek Walcott, the award includes a $2,000 honorarium and is presented annually for a book of poetry by a non-U.S. citizen published anywhere in the world.
Judge Rosanna Warren wrote: "Lorna Goodison has remade Dante's Hell in her own Jamaican vernacular, as salty-tangy-outrageous as Dante's Italian appeared in its day. Her Virgil is 'Miss Lou,' the actor, poet, and folklorist Louise Bennett-Coverley whose description of her mission fits Goodison as well: 'Me was a little gal/ pickney when I wish upon a star fi the gift fi write/poetry that praise mi people inna wi own Jama tongue.' In Goodison's 'Jama tongue' and flamboyant puns, Dante's dead sols, the duppies, spring into fantastic life. Lorna Goodison has enlarged and electrified the English language."