The riddim method

A poet-musician discusses his Jamaican Creole verse.

By K. Leander Williams

Reggae artist Linton Kwesi Johnson is wearing his literary hat this week. Ausable Books has just compiled Mi Revalueshanary Fren, a retrospective collection that assembles three decades worth of his now-trademarked "dub poetry." The topical versifier, Jamaican by birth and raised in Britain, spoke with TONY about braving NYC without a band.

You're currently on a reading tour, but most people know you for your music.

Actually, I've always maintained a pretty regular reading schedule in English-speaking countries. The collection was published a couple of years ago in England as part of Penguin's Modern Classics series. I had the American rights, and an opportunity presented itself with Ausable, with help from Russell Banks, who wrote the new book's introduction. He used to live in Jamaica, and we met at Calabash, the annual Caribbean literary festival there.

Where did the term dub poetry originate?

Well, initially I'd used the term in the early '70s to describe the work of the reggae DJ. At the time, it seemed to me that artists like Big Youth and U-Roy were making a sort of oral poetry. The rhythm of the language is the rhythm of the music, and the language of the music is the language of the verse. However, as a result of the Black British school writers that came up in the late '70s alongside Oku Onuora, the term has sort of spread to encompass any Caribbean-inflected poetry with a musical lilt or component.

When you're reading solo, do you ever miss the band?

No, not really. It's not such a huge difference for me, because the poems were written to be read out loud.

You write and read in Jamaican Creole vernacular, and yet it has been translated into other languages. How does that work?

That's hard for me to answer because I don't speak Italian or German, but I did hear my poetry in Spanish at a festival in Colombia. I read first and then a local would read a translation. That worked quite well.

Early pieces like "Sonny's Lettah" and "Inglan Is a Bitch" address social and racial themes. Are these still pertinent in contemporary England?

I think so. Today, there is a black middle class in England that didn't exist when I was young, but it's like in America that didn't eliminate racial issues. Black people aren't as marginalized in England as they once were, and young people socialize more, but much remains to be done.