Background

Linton Johnson was born on August 24, 1952 in Chapeltown, Jamaica. In 1963 he came to live in Brixton, London, joining his mother who had emigrated to Britain shortly before Jamaican independence in 1962.

Education

Johnson attended Tulse Hill School in Lambeth. Johnson went on to study for a degree in sociology at Goldsmiths College in New Cross, London (graduating in 1973), which currently holds his personal papers in its archives.

Career

During the early to mid-1970s he was employed as the first paid library resources and education officer at the Keskidee Centre, where his poem Voices of the living and the dead was staged, produced by Jamaica novelist Lindsay Barrett, with music by the reggae group Rasta Love.

Has made several recordings, including Poet and the Roots, Virgin, 1977; Dread, Beat, and Blood, Virgin, 1978; Forces of Victory, Island, 1979; Bass Culture, Island, 1980; Making History, Island, 1984; In Concert with the Dub Band, Rough Trade, 1985; Dread Beat an’ Blood, Heartbeat, 1989.

Johnson wrote for New Musical Express, Melody Maker, and Black Music in the 1970s, and while working on a freelance basis for Virgin Records during this period he wrote biographies for reggae artists on the label, as well as sleeve notes and copy for adverts.

Achievements

• In 2002 Linton became the second living poet, and the only black poet, to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Tings an Times: Selected Poems

    (Poems about racism, race riots, radical politics, police ...)

    1992
  • Popular Front of Contemporary Poetry Anthology

    (This wonderful book: Popular Front of Contemporary Poetry...)

    1992
  • Mi Revalueshanary Fren 2006
  • Selected Poems of Kwesi Linton Johnson 2006
  • So Much Things to Say: The Oral History of Bob Marley 2017
  • Dread, Beat and Blood 1975
  • Inglan is a Bitch 1980
  • Touch Mi! Tell Mi! 1993