Reggae poet makes Penguin classics

The patois-riddled work of British black reggae artist Linton Kwesi Johnson is to be included in the canon of classic poetry.

Johnson, 49, who was born in Jamaica and came to Britain in 1963, will become only the second living poet to have his work published in the Penguin Modern Classics range. The other is Polish Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz.

Johnson's poems, which will appear alongside those of John Betjeman and W B Yeats, are a narrative of black British history. In Di Great Insoreckshan, he wrote of the Brixton riots:

"It woz April nineteen eighty wan, doun inna di ghetto of Brixtan, dat di babylan dem cauz such a frickshan, dat it bring about a great insoreckshan."

In 1977 he was awarded a C Day Lewis fellowship and became Lambeth's writer in residence for a year. He has also recorded four albums.