A. L. Hendriks (Arthur Lemière Hendriks) Biography

Jamaican poet, born in Kingston, Jamaica, educated at Jamaica College and Ottershaw College, Surrey. After working as General Manager of the Jamaica Broadcasting Company he became a television director in London. He became a freelance writer in 1971. His early collections of verse, which include On This Mountain (1965) and These Green Islands (1971), made use of rigorously economical forms to frame their imaginative commentaries on a wide range of personal and social concerns. The long title sequence of The Islanders (1983), a vivid evocation of the human and natural aspects of the Caribbean, marked the emergence of more musically flexible modes of verse. His principal subsequent collections are The Naked Ghost (1984) and To Speak Simply (1988), a selected edition of his poetry containing much previously uncollected material. Much of his best work from the early 1980s onward achieves striking dramatic effectiveness through his accomplished use of Jamaican patois. Among his other publications is the historical survey Great Families of Jamaica (1984).