Jamaican poet Lorna Goodison has won the 2026 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry for her reworking of Dante’s Inferno. Prize organiser Arrowsmith Press confirms the award, which carries a US$2,000 honorarium.
Judge Rosanna Warren highlighted the translation’s use of Jamaican vernacular. In Goodison’s version, Louise Bennett-Coverley — Miss Lou — takes the guiding role associated with Virgil in Dante’s original poem.
Carcanet published the translation in April 2025. The annual prize honours a poetry book by a living writer who is not a US citizen, with the eligible book published in the preceding calendar year.
Goodison served as Jamaica’s Poet Laureate from 2017 to 2020. The result received fresh Jamaican coverage on October 26; it had already been reported by the international book trade earlier in October.