Mi Revalueshanary Fren

by Linton Kwesi Johnson

“Few poets of the last thirty years have approached his diversity of formal innovations; few have communicated so intensively via performances and recordings, as often as not with integral musical settings; and few have proved so effective politically… a living modern classic for real.” —London Magazine

“You can just hear the reggae drumbeat as his verse vacillates among fire, anger, fear, profound loss, and victory.” —Savoy Magazine, January 2007

“The man writes some of the most moving poetry to be found in popular music.—David Bowie in Vanity Fair




“His observations are the rich fruits of both a lyrical childhood on a Jamaican farm, and his bottled anger on the streets of London. During his teenage years in Brixton, Johnson witnessed serial episodes of racial abuse and joined the Black Panthers movement in protest. There, he learned his history and culture, but found his own outlet.”—Caroline Frost, BBC Four


Linton Kwesi Johnson is the most influential black poet in Britain. The author of five previous collections of poetry and numerous record albums, he is known worldwide for his fusion of lyrical verse and reggae. Much of his work is written in the street Creole of the Caribbean communities in which he grew up in England. Mi Revalueshanary Fren includes all of his best-known poems, which concern racism and politics, personal experience, philosophy, and the art of music, among other things.


Contains a full-length CD of Johnson reading.

Genres: Poetry, British Literature

113 pages, Paperback

First published May 2, 2002

About the author

Linton Kwesi Johnson (aka LKJ, born 24 August 1952) is a UK-based Jamaican-British dub poet. In 2002 he became the second living poet, and the only black poet, to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series.[1][2] His performance poetry involves the recitation of his own verse in Jamaican Patois over dub-reggae, usually written in collaboration with renowned British reggae producer/artist Dennis Bovell. Johnson's middle name, "Kwesi", is a Ghanaian name that is given to boys who, like Johnson, are born on a Sunday.

Reviews

[Jane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love LKJ. I started out listening to him, esp. a cd called More Time. He writes and sings/reads in Jamaican creole and much of his work is political. One poem, Hurricane Blues, is a gorgeous extended metaphor about love found and lost, and I have it in recorded musical form, read by LKJ, and in the book. I even copied it into a sketchbook, translated into (more or less) standard English. I love the contact with his language, in the round as it were: the sound, shape, meaning, image of the words in the various formats.

[Sarah Sansolo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really interesting use of dialect to put the reader in the middle of the scene, but the book starts to feel very repetitive. Behind the novelty of the accent, most poems are overly simplistic.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am wholly unfamiliar with Dub Culture and had to read this for my Dub Cultures course (recently, my professor actually gave the keynote at a Dub Culture conference in Jamaica!) and honestly? I struggled a lot especially with the more "non-traditionally" written poems (not sure if using the proper terms here since we struggled and still struggle with how to best refer to non-traditional English in my course). A huge majority of the poems here need to be read aloud to really understand the poem.

As someone who has never listened to reggae and has never read any Dub lit., this was a difficult poetry collection for me to understand. I mean. I really struggled. Which is fine since I'm not really the audience in mind but that didn't stop me from understanding the themes of racism, violence, and classism.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems reflecting the experience of being young and Black in London at the backend of the 20th century. Some, deeply personal, individual-focused narratives, others looking outward to highlight the impact of the news cycle bringing images of apartheid and genocide. It is my opinion that all poetry is better served aloud, but particularly for non-speakers of Jamaican Creole, it is almost impossible to appreciate this collection without hearing them performed. Fortunately, the whole collection can be heard as spoken by LKJ himself on YouTube - a perfect companion to the printed copy. Reading this collection is like falling into a deep hole of emotion; there’s three decades of a young life trapped within the pages.

For the spoken collection, search for ‘LKJ a capella live’.

[Maggie · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was a challenge to read (because of the Jamaican creole) but I love the rhythm and the verse. Very political at times but also very honest and accessible (Loved especially: "Liesense fi Kill"; "Reggae fi Dada")

[Caroline Yun · Rating 5 out of 5]

The power of the work speaks for itself.

[Matthew Molinaro · Rating 5 out of 5]

monica introduced me to LKJ, and I wrote about him in 203. two years later, I submitted a paper on LKJ to my caribbean lit class—all to say, syllabus choices matter!

[kripsoo]

Linton Kwesi Johnson's work, My Revalueshanary Fren, beats with the rhythm of reggae and dub but rocks with the non-stop thrum of the real, down-to-earth, local politics of Afro-Caribbean life in urban "Ingland." Is it coincidence that Johnson chooses to rework the first letter and first vowel of the place name of his own personal diaspora? No, because Johnson's poetry is so local and personal that the "I" shouts to be heard and the "In-" is the inclusiveness that the narrative voice demands, repeating "we are here to stay/inna Ingland/inna disya time yah (p. 23)
The repetition of the "in" sound makes the reader hear that Johnson is in England and yes, to stay Johnson uses the sound and inflection of this initial vowel to convey purely political intention, not an easy task since a listener can easily miss the poetry amidst the sheer brutality of the events he recants in "Five Nights of Burning
Another initial vowel sound that he employs is the use of the letter `a" Few other words delineate a Jamaican voice from another Carib voice than the way the simple preposition `or' is pronounced, and written by Johnson, as "ar." This hard, clipped semi-guttural usage of the letter a contrasts with the soft o sound of the long double `aa' of `waaking' or the softer often used `pan.' These two words do not connote political overtones but rather infuse the poems with the melody of street voice, providing a much-needed counterbalance to the "showah every howah" of "people powah" (p. 67).
As the street voice blends with the politicized, the sections of the book meld The sometime melancholy narrative of the last section reads as milder ballast against the shower of rage in the previous sections, notwithstanding the litany of fallen heroes in "Liesense Fi Kill" However, the power of Johnson's word-play to still polemicize in this more ruminant section is apparent by the addition of the letter `e.' Official proclamations surrounding these `sus' deaths turn the government's own use of the word `suspicion' upon itself, accentuating the `lie

[Sunny · Rating 4 out of 5]

short selection of his poetry. LKJ was a london based poet who wtites about some fo teh riots that happenned in London and toxteth in the 60s and 70s and 80s but also writes poems about issues that were effecting blacks and humanity aroudn teh world (rwanda, chatila, bosnia). its written in jamiacan lingo so at first a little hard to read but you slowly get used to it. it was interesting to read as i recognised some of the slang he used growing up on a mixed council estate in the 80s just south of london. he also writes about some fo the deaths that happenned to people at the hands of the police. worth reading.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5/5 stars.
Linton Kwesi Johnson is clearly a fantastic poet; not only is his writing politically powerful, I found it educational as well as having some beautifully poetic phrases. All of this is wrapped up in a phonetic style of writing through which Johnson has a unique voice (at least unique amongst the poetry I have read which is nothing like this).

One of my favourite parts was in the poem 'Reggae ft May Ayim' (Ayim was a mixed-race German poet who killed herself and who this poem is about):

[...] dat di laas time mi si yu
would be di laas time mi si yu
dat you woz free
fallin screamin
terteen stanzahs doun
yu final poem in blood pan di groun
[...]

[Caitlin Conlon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this, my first experience with LKJ's work. I really appreciate what he did here with language, and how raw the topics he spoke of (especially in the first half) were. However, I highly recommend listening to the spoken word versions with the music while reading. Not only will you understand more, but it gives you better sense of admiration for the impact LKJ has on both the poetry and musical world.

[Abe Louise · Rating 5 out of 5]

rarity: a book of poetry (written phonetically in creole english) that MUST be read aloud to be understood.

[Ereck · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I first read these seemingly simple poems, I did not realize that I was taking them on, that they-- and the individuals they remember-- would haunt and worry me, quietly yet consistently.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The godfather of Brixton dub poetry. You can practically smell the frankincense.

[Carrie]

If I can read middle english, I can read Jamaican creole?