Explore the poem

‘A Chant Against Death’ is an uplifting poem to strengthen our spirits. As we chant the words, we remember some of the most positive things in life and we ward off the negative. It’s a great poem to start the new year with and, only 32 words long, it’s not too taxing on the memory.

Notice the pattern of the words as Mervyn Morris has set them out. Think of the words as sounds, like musical notes. Think of the white spaces as silence.

Look at where the words start on each line. Are they before a silence, or after a silence, or in the middle of a silence?

Listen to where the lines sound faster because there are fewer silences, and where they sound slower because there are more silences. Practise these pace changes.

Read the poem aloud paying equal attention to sound and silence. Let the sounds ring clearly in the silence.

About Mervyn Morris

Mervyn Morris was born in Jamaica and studied at the University of the West Indies at Mona (U.W.I) near the capital city, Kingston. After receiving a Rhodes Scholarship he travelled to England to study. He later returned to Jamaica and became part of a community of young poets whose work explored social and cultural issues after Jamaica’s independence from the UK in 1962. As a highly-respected poet and essay writer, Morris began teaching at U.W.I Mona in 1970 and went on to become Professor of Creative Writing and West Indian Literature. Morris has written both in English and a literary version of Jamaican patois, a rich and creative language, with English and West African influences, that emerged from the troubled history of British enslavement of African people. Morris has said that he is ‘happy with the freedom we have in language to say what we feel.’

Morris has produced five collections of poetry, as well as writing and editing a number of books about Caribbean literature including the selected works of the beloved poet Louise Bennett Coverley. In 2009 he was awarded the Jamaican Order of Merit, and appointed Poet Laureate of the country in 2014. Carcanet Press published his selected poems I Been There, Sort Of in 2006, and praised Morris as ‘one of the most distinctive West Indian poets, his work characterised by economy, wit and humane seriousness.’ He lives in Jamaica, now retired but holding the title Professor Emeritus of Creative Writing and West Indian Literature.