The BBC has a nice story about poems written for Nelson Mandela and a book called Halala Madiba to celebrate his 88th birthday (next Tuesday). Apparently it’s hard to get but it includes almost 100 poems with authors including Seamus Heaney, Wole Soyinka, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Benjamin Zephaniah, Wally Mongane Serote, Jeremy Cronin, Tupac Shakur, Andrew Motion, Ntozake Shange, Dennis Brutus and Breyten Breyenbach.

I look forward to reading it. In the meantime, it reminds me that I should find some more LKJ. His albums are awesome and I always loved his poem in Creole called “Englan is a Bitch”:

‘W’en mi jus’ come to Landan town
Mi use to work pa di andahgroun
Y’u don’t get fi know your way aroun”

Happy Birthday Mr. Mandela!