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Book Review for LKJ
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Poetry Foundation, Book Review for LKJ >>
Introducing Mi Revalueshanary Fren, the selected poems of Jamaican-born British poet Linton Kwesi Johnson (LKJ), novelist Russell Banks links him to the efflorescence of black poetries in the late 20th century (think of the American Amiri Baraka, or the Barbadian Kamau Brathwaite) and also to the song traditions and vernacular wizardry found in Muldoon, and before him in songster-poets like Robert Burns. Famous for his “dub-lyricism,” in which he dubs rhythmic phrases over popular beats, LKJ writes in Jamaican Creole, and his poems leap off the page into the mind’s ear. His work rewards (indeed, demands) reading aloud—your mouth becomes the vehicle for his percussive explosions of wit, critique, and elegy. For many American readers this book will be an introduction to the Caribbean diaspora in and around London. LKJ tracks police brutality, community activism, and above all the pulse and ethos of reggae:
dis is de age af reality
but some a wi a deal wid mitalagy
dis is de age af science an teknalagy
but some a wi a check fi antiquity
With their highly honed vernacular, these poems confound any rigid distinction between “literary” and “oral” poetry. Just to seal the multimedia deal, Ausable Press includes a CD of Johnson performing the poems.
11/01/06 >> go there
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