Johnson’s Artistic Resistance to British Brutality: “Inglan Is a Bitch” and “Sonny’s Lettah”

Abstract

As a Jamaican poet, Linton Kwesi Johnson is the forerunner of dub poetry that combines words with reggae rhythm. Johnson establishes a postcolonial discourse of his own and uses his dub poetry to fight against the dominant Western discourse. His poetry tells stories from the black immigrant’s life by using a Creole English and the rhythmic music of Jamaican culture. Thus, his poetry voices the real immigrant experience in Britain in a highly dramatic way. This article focuses on two important poems by Johnson; “Inglan Is a Bitch” and “Sonnah’s Lettah”. In both poems, Johnson subverts the English language, and thus reveals his resistance to the colonial power in the level of language. Besides, both poems have the same political concern of revealing the British discrimination against the blacks. In this respect, Johnson’s poetry is surely his artistic tool against racism and serves to his political activism.