Linton Kwesi Johnson Quotes

#1. Back in those early days when I began my apprenticeship as a poet, I also tried to voice our anger, spirit of defiance and resistance in a Jamaican poetic idiom.

Linton Kwesi Johnson

#2. I am often asked why I started to write poetry. The answer is that my motivation sprang from a visceral need to creatively articulate the experiences of the black youth of my generation, coming of age in a racist society.

Linton Kwesi Johnson

#3. I have never, ever sought validation from the arbiters of British poetic taste.

Linton Kwesi Johnson

#4. Younger people are discovering my work, even though my reggae is not like theirs.

Linton Kwesi Johnson

#5. At the end of the day, life's about realising one's human potential. I don't know if I've realised mine, but I've certainly gone a long way towards realising some goals and some dreams.

Linton Kwesi Johnson

#6. I don't go to see bands any more because I've got tinnitus, so I have to avoid loud music. You get used to it, but when it's quiet you hear a constant ringing.

Linton Kwesi Johnson

#7. Once you have a disease like cancer, you look at life a bit differently. Some things that were important no longer seem as important as they were.

Linton Kwesi Johnson

#8. Writing was a political act and poetry was a cultural weapon.

Linton Kwesi Johnson

#9. The more I read my poems, the more I find out about them. I still read them with the same passion I felt when I wrote them as a young man.

Linton Kwesi Johnson

#10. The modern stuff, I can take it or leave it. I like its danceability, but the DJs talk a lot of nonsense.

Linton Kwesi Johnson