It is a new year, and I must soon get back to shameless self-promotion by reposting my poems… but first I have to begin the year with some Reggae-talk. One of the reasons I finally came around to poetry is because I liked Reggae—and one reason I like Reggae is L.K.J.

Linton Kwesi Johnson does amazing poetry. I don’t care for his leftist politics but his verse is more interesting and intense than that boring, writerly tripe you find in academic journals and the margins of well-known effete liberal publications. The first-class dub musicians backing him up add another dimension to his poetry. I just learned that he came up with the basslines for these dub poems. His work is focused and powerful in a way that Amiri Baraka’s psycho-drivel never was.