Click here to access the poetry recordings of James Berry as well as a brief biography of this author.

James Berry (b. 1924) spent his childhood in a village in Jamaica, before working in the United States, finally settling in Britain in 1948 where he has remained ever since. One of the first black writers in Britain to achieve wider recognition, Berry rose to prominence in 1981 when he won the National Poetry Competition. His five collections of poetry and his stories and poems for children have been widely acclaimed. From this page, you can hear the voice of James Berry reading six of his poems, "Rough Sketch Beginning," "My Arrival," "Early Days Thinking Is Only So Much," "Words of a Jamaican Laas Moment Them," "In-a Brixtan Market," and "Benediction."

Poetry Archive exists to help make poetry accessible, relevant and enjoyable to a wide audience. It came into being as a result of a meeting, in a recording studio, between Andrew Motion, soon after he became U.K. Poet Laureate in 1999, and the recording producer, Richard Carrington. They agreed about how enjoyable and illuminating it is to hear poets reading their work and about how regrettable it was that, even in the recent past, many important poets had not been properly recorded.

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