What a delight. What a wonder. Not meant to be a first-read study of Dante, it's a wonderful reimagining of the poem. I guess I've read at least a half-dozen renditions of The Divine Comedy by now and probably twice as many of just the Inferno and this poetic and powerful retelling gave me so much pleasure to read, both for its own sake and for the way it jostled and danced with my memories of the other translations I've enjoyed. The poem is short, it's been translated into English a zillion times, and it's long past time to allow for these riffs and flourishes and deep-down transformations of the original poem and to stop pedantically asking "but is it true to the original?" because hey go learn Italian if you want the original. Go back to the fourteenth century, while you're at it, so you don't need notes to understand the constant barrages of political and philosophical and religious references in Dante's poem. I understood Lorna Goodison's updated references to people and their sins about as much as I understand Dante's, without the notes. But that's all right. It's the music I came for. This is like a glorious cover of a well-known classic song. My only disappointment is that I don't see any plan to release this poem as an audiobook with the author as reader--now that would be amazing.

I admittedly was not expecting a patois translation of The Inferno, but honestly, goddamn, Ms. Goodison pulls it off. Preserves the lyricality of the original but absolutely leans in hard on the patois, and it's like you can hear Ms. Goodison telling you the story in your ear as you read.

This is my first time reading The Inferno. It's a dense read for sure but I enjoyed the unique and modern spin Lorna Goodison puts on the classic. I think it was a little more accessible than the original text but still some of the references were unfamiliar to me. I am highly, highly impressed by the work though.