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- ISBN: 1-894692-13-6
- $15.95
- Poetry/Caribbean Literature
- 136pp
- 2005
In My Best Friend is White internationally respected dub poet Klyde Broox rummages the heart and soul of the post-colonial world with a bracing and embracing humanity. Influenced simultaneously by Shakespeare and Louise Bennett - aka Miss Lou – Broox employs poetry as a socio-political instrument. Rooted in daily survival struggles and in celebration of every day life, Broox honours the poetry of rap artists from the top of the charts to the streets where they began, drawing connections to the spoken word traditions of the Caribbean and Africa. He takes on the violent messages of gangsta rap and their consequences with a clear, mature message of his own. Poems of Jamaican life link to the poets and philosophy of his home culture: "My God Talk Patois" claims a deep Jamaican spiritual inheritance, "Mi Cyaan Believe It Yet" testifies after the murder of dub colleague Mikey Smith. This smart, provocative poetry blends speech and song, rhythm and rhyme in a distinct, infectious style.
“Now all yas who backtalk and sling black looks,
Ya ain’t read nothing til ya hear Klyde Broox.
He rope-a-dope, he savvy, swank and suave,
He call Minister Malcolm up outta da grave.
If you’re looking for Truth, ya gotta free it from books:
So, sound these resounding pages of the sage Klyde Broox.”
George Elliot Clarke, Laureate
2001 Governor-General’s Award for Poetry
“Intensely allusive, multi-layered, skilful and unfailing
in its sense of comic timing and rhetorical positioning, this poetry cannot fail
to change Canadians’ perspective on Canada, on its literature, and on its
historical and political relationship with the African diaspora.”
Maria Caridad Casas