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Born in Jamaica in 1958, Geoffrey Philp has published one novel, five volumes of poetry, a short-story collection, two children’s books, and a play. His work is represented in nearly every anthology of Caribbean literature, and his blog (www.geoffreyphilp.blogspot.com) is read all over the world. He has lived in Miami since the mid-1970s and has a master’s degree from the University of Miami. A professor at Miami Dade College since 1979, he is now chair of the College Preparatory Department.

Philp won The Caribbean Writer’s first poetry chapbook contest in 1990. Other awards include an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Florida Arts Council, an artist-in-residence at the Seaside Institute, the Sauza Stay Pure Award, the Canute Brodhurst Prize (fiction) and the Daily News Prize (poetry) from The Caribbean Writer, two James Michener fellowships from the University of Miami, and the coveted Outstanding Writer Prize from the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission.

Writing in the Small Axe literary salon, Jennifer Marshall has remarked on the “cultural smorgasbord of references to historical and contemporary events” found in his writing.” The critic and poet Carrol B. Fleming has compared his poetry to early work by Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, noting that Philp’s “poems wander through bedrooms and along the waterfronts of that perceptive land accessible only to poets.”