Now including an afterword and new poems by the author and an introduction by Gary Younge

Pioneering poet Linton Kwesi Johnson has revolutionized English literature with his electrifying fusion of oral verse, Jamaican speech, radical politics and reggae rhythms. This new edition of a vital selection of poems covers over four decades and includes classic early poems such as 'Inglan is a Bitch', 'New Craas Massakah' and 'Sonny's Lettah', as well as compelling recent work.

'Linton Kwesi Johnson's impact on the cultural landscape over the last half-century has been colossal and multi-generational . . . His political ferocity and his tireless scrutiny of history are truly Pinteresque, as is the humour with which he pursues them' Guardian

'A warrior wordsmith whose couplets take no prisoners' The Times

'Linton Kwesi Johnson's body of work - the sheer length, breadth, depth, politics, performance, rhyme and reason of it - bears witness to a lifetime of lending lyrical form to a condition that Britain has proved unable or unwilling (or both) to name' Gary Younge

Named after the poets mother, mamaseko is a collection of introspective lyrics and other poems dealing with the intersections of blood relationships and related identities. Thabile Makue questions what it means to be beings of blood-to relate by blood, to live by blood. In her poems Makue looks for traces of shared trauma and pain and asserts that wounds of the blood are healed by the same. 
 

Opening with forty-three new formally inventive poems and leading the reader back in time through selections from her ten previous volumes, The Ghost Forest offers a contemplative and haunting narrative of a writers artistic journey through craft and form while illuminating her personal history. Exploring the mysteries of science, nature, and the experiences of contemporary womanhood, Hahn both reinvents classic Japanese forms and experiments with traditional Western ones. Braided into the poems and narrative thread, a series of photos transforms the new-and-selected into a hybrid autobiography. This arresting collection derives new beauty from long-gone remnants.

A Riotous Disorder
She mistakes one word for another
Something her brain naturally concocts.
Her unruly gray matter and her heart
Mistake one word for an other
Razor for river, cistern for sister.
Even cock for clock.
She mistakes one word for a mother
A safe her brain naturally unlocks.