If dub poetry is “Jamaica’s gift of a new art form to the literary world” (Bucknor 255), Linton Kwesi Johnson is one of this gift’s preeminent voices. Recipient of the English PEN’s Golden PEN Award for a lifetime’s distinguished service to literature in 2012 and the Institute of Jamaica Musgrave Medal in 2005 for eminence in the field of poetry, Johnson became the first Black poet and only the second living poet to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series in 2002. Although now widely anthologized and recognized by literary establishments as a canonical poet, Johnson has consistently eschewed critical classifications, and his artistic production manifests deliberate ideological and creative tensions with literary orthodoxies and print culture.
A self-labeled “reggae
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Citation: Miranda, Katherine. "Linton Kwesi Johnson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 August 2016 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2382, accessed 25 November 2024.]
