The Guardian Features Six Black British Poets

The Guardian is featuring a series of interviews with poets Linton Kwesi Johnson, Grace Nichols, Raymond Antrobus, Vanessa Kisuule, Kayo Chingonyi, and Malika Booker, with an introduction by Kadish Morris. In conversation with Jude Rogers, Johnson notes, "I started after discovering black literature, which stirred something in me. Writing poetry for me was always a political act. Poetry was a cultural weapon." More: 

Who is your audience?
I have two sets. I’ve sold a few million records, so the vast majority are consumers of reggae. The whole object of making albums for me was to get my poetry out to people, which worked. The other set is the people who come to the readings I do up and down the country. That’s smaller.

Name a poem you wish you had written.
Poem of Shape and Motion #1 by the Guyanese poet Martin Carter, one of my favourite ever poets. [It begins: “I was wondering if I could shape this passion / Just as I wanted in solid fire.”] It’s beautiful, profound and elegiac in tone.

Why do we turn to poetry in challenging times?
[Jamaica’s poet laureate] Lorna Goodison was on to something when she said there is a medicinal quality to poetry. It can be soothing, therapeutic or even just distracting if you have a troubled mind. It serves a purpose, like the Bible did in my mother’s generation. They turned to the book for solace. Poetry has the same quality.

What kinds of challenges have you faced as a black poet in the UK publishing industry?
I’ve never been part of the publishing industry. I’ve always been on the periphery. Even when I was younger, I was just known for touring with John Cooper Clarke. John was the punk poet, I was the reggae poet. Things might be changing now, though, with Jay Bernard and Raymond Antrobus in print, and Roger Robinson winning the TS Eliot prize. I hope so.

Are you inspired by the Black Lives Matter protests around the world?
I’m over the moon about what’s happening with young people. I come from a rebel generation of activists who wanted to change the country, and it feels like this new generation are going in again. I’m so glad I’m alive to see it happening. It doesn’t matter if the current protests were inspired by America. There’s been a huge response here because there is racism in the legal system, and a culture of impunity in the police. I’d go so far as to say that racism is part of the cultural DNA of Britain.

Have you joined in yourself?
No. They don’t want some old fuddy-duddy turning up. I hope we inspire them to blaze the trail: they all have access to the work we’ve done about our struggles at the George Padmore Institute [an archive about the black community of Caribbean, African and Asian descent in Britain and continental Europe]. This is their time.

What’s your favourite protest or political poem?
There It Is, by Jayne Cortez, the great American jazz poet. It’s a very incendiary poem, a rueful indictment of the American elite and all that is rotten about the US. It’s combative in tone, and revels in its language.

Which poet most makes you laugh and why?
John Hegley. I love his short, witty pieces. They’re often anecdotal, about the absurdities of everyday life, like parodies of poets doing poetry.

Quote a line from a poem of yours that you think best reflects our times.
One line couldn’t do it, but my poem Liesense Fi Kill comes to mind, which I recorded on my More Time album [released in 1999]. It speaks about black deaths in police custody. Most of what I’ve written over the years is about racial equality and social justice. It’s all still relevant today.

Who are the poets you turn to?
Kamau Brathwaite, one of the giants of Caribbean poetry, Derek Walcott and John La Rose, especially his Eyelets of Truth Within Me collection. TS Eliot, as well.

Can poetry change the world?
No. Poetry can’t change anything. It can have agency in terms of raising people’s consciousness. What it can do is raise awareness.

Learn more at The Guardian.