Professor Mervyn Morris on Tuesday said that dub poetry enriched his scholarship, in a statement equivalent to a classical virtuoso lauding dancehall music for its artistry.

In response the Poetry Society of Jamaica praised Morris for giving Dub poetry certitude.

“Yes I was able to help some of them (dub poets) but one was learning from them all the time,” Morris told the gathering at the Edna Manley College in Kingston. “People who were particularly helpful to me were Oku Onouru and to a lesser extent Mikey Smith. I learnt a lot about what they thought they were doing and it was useful to me in many places even in academia.”

Morris in October was presented with the nation’s third-highest honour, the Order of Merit, for his contribution to Jamaican literature. Morris made brevity his signature style in an era dominated by lengthy pose.

“I want to thank Mervyn for making me write mercifully short poems,” Mbala, a respected poet and instrumentalist, told the gathering at Edna Manley. “Morris would take out a word here and there and I have been taking out words ever since.”

Morris, the former Rhode scholar should have become a surgeon, “he cuts so cleanly”, dub poet and radio executive Tomlin Ellis told the gathering.

“If there was no Mervyn most of us would not be standing here, because we were not encouraged,” Ellis said.

Jamaican poetry in the ’70s was divided into the performance (dub) and literary tradition. Edna Manley College in Kingston was to performance poets what the University of West Indies (UWI) was to the literati. However Morris, then a young lecturer at UWI, mentored and edited Louise Bennett, Mutabaruka, Mickey Smith, Nabbi Natural, Mbala and many others performance poets.

The “veranda” literary poets were not interested in the young poets, “but there were about three that I can remember who were: Mervyn Morris, Dennis Scott and Tom Scott,” Ellis recalled.

“You continue to be more than a shining beacon,” said dub poet Nabbi Natural in a extemporaneous poem. “Through time redefining space creating life beyond modern memories as ancient as son (sun) continues to be sun (son). An illuminating force to countless generations Mervyn Morris you remain my guiding light.”

In addition to his creative writing courses in prose and poetry at UWI, his poetry readings and workshops influenced generations of writers at UWI and beyond.

“Morris is one of the only writers I would like to write like,” said poetry society host Danielle “Maa” Brooks.

The open fellowship occurs every final Tuesday of the month at Edna Manley College and has for some 20 years. It was the second fellowship this year in honour of literary poets. In September the Poetry Society lauded the late Wayne Brown for his poetry workshops and contribution to Caribbean poetry.

“There are million pens writing…and may we one day be like you, poets spilling their guts as you did,” stated Nabbi Natural in tribute to Brown in September.

Tommy Rickets, president of the Poetry Society of Jamaica, stated in September: “Wayne Brown is a man who refused to come to the fellowship because he said ‘too many people don’t take literature seriously’. This man is a literary icon, he was here and in your face and always accessible. You could turn up at his house and say ‘yes I want to do this’. He loved literature and was passionate. He was a literary activist. I feel we doing this not for him, but for us.”

Poet Deloris added: “Without those workshops I don’t think I would be writing now because I had no confidence”.

Poet Ann Margaret added that Brown was a father figure to her: “We had personal walks on the beach and he said to me ‘get serious, and have a child’, that same year I got pregnant”.

Poet and Gleaner writer Mel Cooke stated: “I never met him in my life. I suspect that if we met it would not have been a smooth encounter”.