ISON is in his own nal'. He is also internahis poetry - some set cribes and celebrates ack community in Brixton uprisings and confrontation in Notof Socialist orsman of Music for iton about his art and and one year later it published his first book of poems, the Living and the Dead.
Bogle L'Ouverture his second volume and Blood in 1975. A film of the shan shan li glory bin victri dem seh: wi comandeer kyar an wi ghaddah aminishan wi buil wi barricade an di wicked ketch afraid wi sen out wi scout fi goh fine dem whereabout den wi faam-up wi passi an wi mek wi raid Linton Kwesi Johnson I AM an tion and enlightenment.
have to try harder.
tional politics.
ly different.
that.
same title, The Voices of Council of and was screened by the BBC.
published Dread Beat now dem run gaan but di plastic bullit an di waatah canon Published in Race Today, Feb-March 1982 artist who creates for people's entertainment and edificaIf my poetry does that I'm happy. If it doesn't I'l If I do write about matters which are of political significance and importance that is only by accident. It's only because I happen to be a political animal who is involved in organisaI have been involved in the black movement since I was a youth. Maybe I would still be writing poetry if I hadn't been involved in the movement with about something completeBut I don't ever get the two mixed up. You end up with a very cheap progagandist art and I'm totally against I don't believe you can legislate financed by the Arts Great Britain, documented a poet in the making His third collection Inglan is a Bitch was published in 1980 by kaw, African Asian goh plan countah-hackshan will bring a blam-blam will bring a blam-blam nevah mine Scarman will bring a blam-blam for art. You can't say that the artist must be conscious and the artist must write to free people. An artist creates out of his own experience and at certain times in history there are certain individuals who happen to have these concerns and their art reflects it.
For example, Martin Carter, the Guyanese poet; Nicolas Guillen from Cuba; and even in England William Blake who did the painting.
These are coincidences You can have an artist produce good art and be politically reactionary and vice versa.
I think as far as the black movement is concerned that what I do in Race Today is more important than writing ten poems or making ten albums.
Poetry has a role play.
wouldn't go so far as to say it leads to political action. It has a role to play in the ideological struggle, the struggle Race Today.
He has recorded his poems to music. Dread Beat and Blood is on the Virgin label. Forces of Victory in 1979 and Bass Culture in 1980 are on the Island label.
IT DREAD INNA INGLAN (for George Lindo)
dem frame-up George Lindo up in Bradford Toun but di Bradford Blacks dem a rally roun .... mi seh dem frame-up George Lindo up in Bradford Toun but di Bradford Blacks dem a rally roun.....
Maggi Tatcha on di go wid a racist show but a she haffi go rite now.
West Indian an' Black British stan firm inna Inglan inna disya time yah far noh mattah way dey say, come wat may, we are here to stay inna Inglan, inna disva time yah .....
George Lindo him is a working man George Lindo him is a family man George Lindo him nevah do no wrang George Lindo di innocent one George Lindo him noh carry no daggah George Lindo him is nat no rabbah George Lindo dem haffi let him go George Lindo dem bettah free him now! for ideas All it does is to reinforce existing sentiments. I think my poetry has a wav of recording our experiences anc of expressing the sentiments that we have. These are popular sentiments. I don't invent them.
I'm not saying that art has no role to play in the revolutionary ment. Obviously it does. But it is very dangerous to overestimate that role. It is a stimulas What most artists hope for if they have arevolutionaryperspective is that their art, whether their songs, their novels, their poetry will make people their educate them.
It's about entertainment - not in the show business sense but you listen to a piece of music for instance andit's sad. And because you're a human being and you have that human capacity for sadness you're entertainment. And if that isn't what you do then it becomes cheap propaganda. And bad art as well.
At the poetry reading at the Book Fare you finished off with a poem about sohreckshan I got the impression you were perturbed at the lack of political understanding people about what they were doing? I am wrong?
Yes. vou are wrong. celebration of the military stand that people took in the streets. It records what happens. It makes the point that if the state responds with a greater degree of repression then people on the streets will respond accordingly Why was the First International Radical Black Book Fair established and did you see it as part of building the black movement?
The idea didn't just drop out of the sky. It was a continuation of work which had been done since the 60s by both Bogle L'Ouverture Beacon Books.
just in terms of and making available the kinds of information they felt important for the black working class to have at disposal but also in terms of other cultural activities — plays, poetry and su Ull. It tried to break the stranglehold that the metropolitan publishers have on the dissemination of information and ideas, to make towards the cultural development of the black working class.
When we spoke to Darcus Howe, the editor of Race Today, a couple of weeks ago he felt that youth couldn't remain at the level of spontaneous uprising, they had to go onto another stage of political organisation.
Well that's commonsense. Its obVious. plastic bullets that they've been killing people with for the last ten years in İreland. They have CS gas. spontaneous thing anymore.
Where's today?
I think we're at the centre of British politics. Our struggles to break out of the colonial were placed when we came in the 50s the black HOVC are central to it.
agree tions movement?
our experience moved That's Di Great in for told us the this.
made a The poem is a there.
don't education and Third World against and New put publishing Right.
Socialist between La contribution the question with us.
working no peasants Now the police have these change.
So this won't work youth now the black movement give it to them.
mould into which with Dub Poets Michael Smith (Mi Caan Believe it) Linton Kwesi Johnson (Sonny's Lettah)
Oku Onouua (LA Tell)
Lambeth Town Hall, Acre Lane/Brixton Hill Brixton London SW2 Wednesday 12 May £2.75 Tickets from Race Today, 2268 have had an tremendous impact.
There's not one left organisatior. that isn't trying to get a foothold in right nOW think that's a positive sign of the importance of blacks.
For example, the insurrections which took place over the last couple years involved both black and white. But blacks were the leadership. I think that whatever happens in Britain in the next twenty years, blacks Well Socialist Challenge would with you wholeheartedly there! But you tended to express yourself as if socialist organisa.
have parasitic exploitative relationship to the black It has been so you know. That was in the 60s. I don't if its changing When blacks first came and we had our pro. blems we were totally ignored by the white left. The Communist Party may have tried to recruit a couple.
The fact that blacks were working inder colonial conditions doing work less money than their white counterparts and no one came and 'well you shouldn't be doing You should join a union'.
Nobody was there. But once we thrust well everybody was This is the line: 'Black and white unite and fight' I think that link between the black and white working class is there. We live in isolation from each other. We wage struggles together on the factory floor and we wage strug gles together against the kinds For non-education We wage physical battles together oppressive force streets. I think slogans like 'black and white unite and fight are spurious because it happens anyway.
I think the way that the slogan is forward or tillell! against black self-organisation.
Challenge supports black self-organisation. How do you see yourselves in the debate black separation and black self-organisation?
I don't know if I'm qualified to speak on behalf of the Alliance of the Black Parents Movement, the Black Youth Movement and the Race Today Collective on this. What I do know is that of separation or nonseparation has never been an issue The Alliance has always had a class perspective We've always said we're for workers and peasants power. In Britain there are so we re lor worker: power. We believe that society must change and we want to assist it to the mood among the know that the are prepared for another confrontation The attitude is, well they want it, we'll But I don't think anyone is going to go out and look for another insurrection. The mood is there. It's an 1982 at 7.30 165 Railton Rd, SE24 tel 01-737 Socialist Challenge 29 April 1982
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3 the hard way An evening of poetry