[Yale-readings] 11-18 Reggae Poet Linton Kwesi Johnson

[Kuhl, Nancy]

LINTON KWESI JOHNSON
REGGAE POET
Tuesday, November 18
7:00pm
African American Cultural Center, 211 Park St.

Poetry Performance, Linton Kwesi Johnson, legendary reggae dub
poet, and a conversation with Caryl Phillips, Professor of English,
Yale University
?No one has chronicled the struggles of black people in Britain more
effectively than Linton Kwesi Johnson. His combination of poetry and
reggae has inspired a generation of dub musicians in Britain and around
the world.? (Nigel Williamson, Times of London)

Hailed as a legend in Europe for his poetry and music, and revered as
the world's first reggae poet, Linton Kwesi Johnson (LKJ) was born in
1952 in Chapelton, a small town in the rural parish of Clarendon,
Jamaica, and moved to London in 1963. He studied Sociology at
Goldsmiths College, University of London, during which time he joined
the Black Panthers. While helping to organize a poetry workshop within
the movement, he developed his work with Rasta Love, a group of poets
and drummers. His first volume of poems, Voices of the Living and the
Dead, was published in 1974. His landmark second collection, Dread Beat
An' Blood, was published in 1975, was recorded, and a film of the same
name was made by the BBC as a documentary of a young poet in the
making. His third volume was Inglan Is A Bitch (1980). In 1996, Johnson
released his CD, LKJ A Cappella Live, a collection of poems without
music, of which the Boston Phoenix wrote, ?A killer poetry-only
set.? Johnson has been awarded a Silver Musgrave Medal for eminence
in the field of poetry by the Institute of Jamaica, the second highest
award in Jamaica. His first US publication, Mi Revalueshanary Fren, was
published by Ausable Press in 2006.

He documented the riots that broke out in Brixton in the early 1980s in
poems such as "Di Great Insohreckshan," describing violence bubbling up
from the beat of reggae music. His work is often stark and violent, but
sometimes it is leavened by humour, as in one of his most famous poems,
the title poem of his 1980 collection Inglan is a Bitch (1980):

W'en mi jus' come to Landan town
Mi use to work pa di andahgroun
Y'u don't get fi know your way aroun'


?The newest and most original poetic form to have emerged in the
English language in the last quarter century.? (Fred D?Aguiar)

?LKJ's uncompromising vision is a product of the
Caribbean migration to England. His words communicate the frustrations,
aspirations and poverty of an oppressed black urban society by fusing
reggae street rhythms with political thought, striking blows for
freedom like sparks from a flint, while revelling in the natural
rhythms and musical cadence of Jamaican English.? (CC Smith)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/may/04/poetry.books

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Zq9OpJYck7Y

co-sponsored by:

New Ideas in African-American Studies
The African-American Cultural Center
Literature of the Middle Passage Program

--
Elizabeth Alexander
Professor, African-American Studies
Yale University
493 College Street
New Haven, CT 06510
203.432.9061
fax. 203.776.9055


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