What is the relationship between poetry and social change? Standing at
the forefront of political poetry since the 1970s, Linton Kwesi Johnson
has been fighting neo-fascism, police violence and promoting socialism
while putting pen to paper to refute W.H. Auden's claim that 'poetry
makes nothing happen'. For Johnson, only the second living poet to have
been published in the Penguin Modern Classics series, writing has always
been 'a political act' and poetry 'a cultural weapon'.
In
Dread Poetry and Freedom - the first book dedicated to the work of this
'political poet par excellence' - David Austin explores the themes of
poetry, political consciousness and social transformation through the
prism of Johnson's work. Drawing from the Bible, reggae and Rastafari,
and surrealism, socialism and feminism, and in dialogue with Aime
Cesaire and Frantz Fanon, C.L.R. James and Walter Rodney, and W.E.B. Du Bois and the poetry of d'bi young anitafrika, Johnson's work becomes
a crucial point of reflection on the meaning of freedom in this
masterful and rich study. In the process, Austin demonstrates why art,
and particularly poetry, is a vital part of our efforts to achieve
genuine social change in times of dread.
Dread Poetry and Freedom : Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Unfinished Revolution - David Austin
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£15.99