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.

"With fiery verse and spellbinding, often reggae-backed, performances, the Jamaican-born, London-based Johnson helped create the hybrid genre of dub poetry in the late 1970s. Mixing militancy with pathos, ballad forms with subtler narrative modes; LKJ (as he's known) remains a leading voice of Afro-Caribbean Britain. He took a giant step toward canonicity in 2002 when he became the first contemporary black poet given his own volume in the British series of Penguin Classics, which this first American book reprints, with a new introduction from novelist Russell Banks. Using Jamaican Creole, rather than standard English, LKJ tries at once to speak for a nation within a nation and to craft a populist idiom with potentially universal appeal, drawing terms and attitudes from Jamaican culture, biblical teachings and Black Power: 'All oppression/ can do is bring/ passion to di heights of eruption,' he promises; 'we're di forces af victri/ an wi comin rite through.' Here are manifestos for the African Diaspora, reggae protests against police brutality and, toward the end of the volume, introspective, even erotic, verse. His lingo poses no barrier to comprehension; more problematic for Americans might be poems based on news events (such as the 1981 New Cross Massacre in London) poorly publicized here. Includes CD of Johnson reading his poems. (Sept.)" Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"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

"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." Michael Horovitz, London Magazine

Linton Kwesi Johnson is the most influential black poet in Britain. The author of four previous collections of poetry and numerous record albums, he is known world-wide for his fusion of lyrical verse and reggae (dub). Much of his work is written in the street Creole of the Caribbean communities in which he grew up in England. He is only the second living poet in history to be published in Penguin's distinguished Modern Classics series. This is his first U.S. publication.