I should start this post with an apology and thank you to my dad. A few months ago he gave me a pair of CDs by Linton Kwesi Johnson, or LKJ, a well renowned reggae artist. I was pretty floored by the music, so when I stumbled upon LKJ’s collection of poems, Mi Revalueshanary Fren, I bought it without hesitation. I had every intention of giving it to my dad until I started reading it and fell in love. So I’ll be keeping this one. Sorry, pops. Thanks for turning me onto LKJ.
In the introduction to Mi Revalueshanary Fren, Russell Banks writes that LKJ uses a “language created out of necessity[.]” It’s nearly impossible to not read LKJ’s poems out loud in order to feel the sounds coming from your own mouth, and attempt to recreate the language he has confined, against its will, to the page.
Reading any poem out loud creates an urgency that isn’t always present on the page, but LKJ’s poems are urgent to begin with. Take “Sonny’s Lettah,” one of his most famous poems, which includes these lines describing a confrontation between Sonny, his brother Jim, and three white police officers:
dem tump him in him belly
an it turn to jelly
dem lick him pan him back
an him rib get pap
dem lick him pan him hed
but it tuff like led
dem kick him in him seed
an it started to bleed
The confrontation leads to the death of one of the police officers and the imprisonment of Jim and Sonny, who writes a letter to their mother telling her, “dont fret, / dont get depress / an doun-hearted.” LKJ calls his work “dub poetry,” and dub (reggae) music’s driving urgency is evident in his poems, even on the page where the rhythm serves the poem.
Mi Revalueshanary Fren is split up into three parts, each one containing poems from three decades of LKJ’s work, from the 1970s through the 1990s. Throughout thirty years of writing, LKJ’s work remains musical, vigorous, and political, though with a little humor thrown in for good measure. My favorite poem from the book, “If I Woz a Tap-Natch Poet,” LKJ includes an epigraph from the Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Poetry: “dub poetry has been described as … ‘over-compensation for deprivation[.]’” He then describes the poem he would have written if he “woz a tap-natch poet / like Chris Okigbo / Derek Walcot / ar T.S. Eliot[.]” Every writer has thought about what they would write if they were “tap-natch,” but the joke here is that LKJ is top-notch, even if he won’t admit it.
While Linton Kwesi Johnson might not be a household name in the United States, in England he is well known for his music and poetry. He is the second living and the first black poet to have his selected poems published in England in the Penguin Classics series. LKJ’s work leaps off of the page unlike any other poet, and he has left a lasting influence on contemporary poets, from slam poets, to writers like Douglas Kearney who radically distort language in order to express a sentiment more directly and truly. Linton Kwesi Johnson’s work can’t be confined merely to the page or to the stage, but lives somewhere between, when readers read his work aloud.
Watch LKJ perform two of his poems, one with and one without music:
Linton Kwesi Johnson – Liesense Fi Kill
Linton Kwesi Johnson – Inglan is a Bitch
I’ve written before on the beauty of solitude, and I think it’s time for another moment of solitary reflection.
Last time, I featured the work of Edward Hopper to showcase those lost-in-thought moments. This week, I’ve pulled from a few of his contemporaries; behold: three mid-century solo thinkers. Let’s join them with our own wandering minds, yes?
Andrew Wyeth, Sandspit, 1953. Egg tempera on masonite. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Esther Bubley for the OWI, April 1943, Washington D.C. Photograph. Via Shorpy.
Alex Colville, Man on Verandah, 1953. Glazed tempera on board.
It officially feels like summer to me: I’ve been able to consistently bike to work, my skin tone is slowly but surely turning from ghostly translucence to a mild tan, and I’ve grilled at least twice this week. With a holiday weekend coming up in just a few weeks, I’ve been searching my bookcases and local bookstores for some goodies to stash in my suitcase that is headed up with me to the family cabin on Pine Lake. Here is my list. Now what’s yours?
Gryphon: New and Selected Stories by Charles Baxter (Pantheon Books, 2011): This book of short stories will be for those days on the dock, reading between jumps into the (OK, still somewhat cold) lake. I’ve already worked my way through a handful and found them rich (albeit, a bit lonely). A self-described “Midwestern writer in a postmodern age,” many of Baxter’s characters show twinges of teeming depths behind their reserved, Midwestern-esque facade.
The Last Warner Woman by Kei Miller (Coffee House Press, 2012): If you haven’t already been able to deduce as much, I am in love with Coffee House Press. (This is a book that you will all find in another What We’re Reading post soon, FYI.) Adamine Bustamante is a woman fighting for her personal story. Born in a Jamaican leper colony, Bustamante has the gift of “warning,” but this gift is distorted as insanity when she moves to England. I’ve been giddily anticipating digging into this novel, and this will be my “meaty” book that I am most looking forward to.
The Princess Bride by William Goldman (Ballantine, 1973): This is because I firmly believe that summer is the perfect time to revisit a classic (as in, something that you’ve read so many times the spine is falling apart). And come on, who doesn’t love this book? Hazel introduced me to it when I was in elementary school. My immediate and steadfast love for the novel is obvious with my name written in a magenta gel pen in loopy elementary school handwriting branded on the first page. Buttercup and Westley’s undying love, their adventures through Guilder trying to find their way to each other, and the host of hilarious, rich characters, including the Sicilian con-man Vizzini (“In-con-theiv-able!” is still among my favorite parts in the movie adaptation), the kind giant Fezzik, the Spaniard Inigo who is out to avenge his father’s death, and many more.
What books will you spend the holiday, and/or summer digesting? Or, which books are you most looking forward to reading in the near future?
Head on over to the Open Mic, read read read, and, most importantly, leave your feedback. Like something in particular about a piece? Or is there something about it that doesn’t quite work? Help your fellow writers workshop their works-in-progress by leaving constructive comments.
The feedback frenzy lasts 24 hours only, so make sure to head over NOW!
(For those of you who missed March’s announcement)
You’ll notice that Open Mic is now password-protected. Why?
Because although Open Mic is a writing workshop, where writers post works-in-progress for critique, and not meant as a platform to publish work, it is a grey enough area that some journals, magazines, and other publishers may still consider pieces (even unfinished ones) posted online in a public forum to be “previously published.”
There is, however, general consensus that pieces posted in a password-protected forum are considered “not public” and therefore not “previously published.” Since one of the main goals of Open Mic is to help writers fine-tune their pieces for publication, we want to make sure that pieces submitted here won’t be considered ineligible for publication elsewhere. Making Open Mic submissions password-protected should resolve this issue.
This was a decision that we thought long and hard about. To password-protect the posts is to add a small hurdle — albeit a necessary one — in what is an otherwise welcoming and open experience. We’re trying to make it as painless as possible.
The logistics:
Anyone can receive the password to read the Open Mic submissions and/or comment on them. Simply email openmic@hazelandwren.com, and the magic word will be immediately emailed to you via automatic response. No one needs to submit any personal information or payment in order to receive the password.
Enter the password once on any post, and all Open Mic posts will automatically become visible. The password is the same for every Open Mic post, and it will never change.
