Exploding Canons: Linton Kwesi Johnson and the Caribbean Poetic-Political Tradition

David Austin is the author of Fear of A Black Nation: Race ,Sex and Security in Sixties Montreal winner of the 2014 Casas De Las America and winner of the silver medal at the 2014 Independent Mr. Austin has produced documentaries on Frantz Fanon and CLR James for CBC Radio’s Ideas . He teaches in the Humanities, Philosophy and Religion department at John Abbott College in Montreal and is currently working on a book that explores the intersection of poetry, theatre and social change.

The lecture discusses the work of British-Jamaican poet Linton Kwesi Johnson in relation to Caribbean literary and left traditions. Linton Kweis-Johnson’s early work was heavily influenced by both Cesaire’s surrealism and Fanon’s phenomenology of violence.