Guyanese writer Grace Nichols has been awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry for the year 2021.
Buckingham Palace announced on Friday that the Poetry Medal Commit-tee, chaired by the Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, unanimously recommended Nichols as this year’s recipient on the basis of her body of work, particularly her first collection of poetry, I Is a Long-Memoried Woman (1983), prose and several books for younger readers. The recommendation was approved by the Queen.
“I was overwhelmed when I first got the news. It was both wonderful and humbling to be recognised in this way,” Nichols, 71, was quoted as saying in a statement accompanying the announcement. “
Nichols moved to Britain at the age of 27 and her first collection of poetry won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. In 2007, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
“In my own work I’ve celebrated my Guyanese/ Caribbean/South American heritage in relation to the English traditions we inherited as a former British colony. To poetry and the English language that I love, I’ve brought the registers of my own Caribbean tongue. I wish my parents who use to chide me for straining my eyes, as a small girl reading by torchlight in bed, were around to share in this journey that poetry has blessed me with,” she also said.
For his part, Armitage noted that over the past four decades, Nichols has been “an original, pioneering voice” in the British poetry scene, where she has embraced the tones of her adopted country and maintained the cadences of her native tongue. “Her poems are alive with characters from the folklore and fables of her Caribbean homeland, and echo with the rhymes and rhythms of her family and ancestors. Song-like or prayer-like on occasion, they exhibit an honesty of feeling and a generosity of spirit. They are also passionate and sensuous at times, being daring in their choice of subject and openhearted in their outlook,” he said.
Armitage also said Nichols has been a beacon for black women poets in Britain, staying true to her linguistic coordinates and poetic sensibilities, and offering a means of expression that has offered inspiration and encouragement to many. “She is a moving elegist, and a poet of conciliation and constructive dialogue between cultures, but also a voice of questioning dissent when the occasion demands,” he observed.
The Gold Medal for Poetry, which was established by King George V in 1933, is awarded each year to a poet from the United Kingdom or a Commonwealth Realm for excellence in poetry on the basis either of a body of work over several years, or for an outstanding poetry collection issued during the year of the award.
