For this, the second week of Black History Month 2024, here is the third lesson of five on the life, times, and art of British Young Adult novelist Alex Wheatle. This lesson deals with the infamous New Cross House Fire on 18 January 1981. It was a fraught and seminal moment for Britain’s black community, and it is dealt with in the film that attends this unit, Alex Wheatle. The film dramatizes the events at New Cross on that night with a photomontage that is underpinned by Linton Kwesi Johnson, in particularly mellifluous voice, reading his poem about the event, “New Crass Massakah.”
If you open the link under Mr. Johnson’s name above, you will find the Wikipedia article on him that observes that in “2002 he became the second living poet, and the only black one, to be published in the Penguin Modern Classics series.” For some reason, finding that book proved very difficult, and I ended up with what would appear to be an American subsidiary edition published by Copper Canyon Press in Port Townshend, Washington. I assembled a large assortment of documents for this lesson.
Let’s start with this fine introduction to the the collection of Linton Kwesi Johnson poems, Mi Revalueshanary Fren (Port Townshend, Washington: Copper Canyon Press, 2006) I secured. The well-regarded American poet and novelist Russell Banks wrote it, and it is a doozy. I haven’t used it in both the instances I taught this unit, but I wanted to have it around so that I can use it to help students understand the importance of Mr. Johnson’s work. It seems that I have some future plans for this document, because I took the time to prepare a second version with a lexicon appended.
I open this lesson with this context clues worksheet on the adjective crass. The reading for this lesson, unsurprisingly, is the poem “New Crass Massakah.” I prepared this second version with each stanza numbered if you need something a bit more supportive and supported. Should you need to use the numbered version, you’ll probably need to do some editing on the comprehension and analysis worksheet that attends the poem.
Finally, here is the list of the New Cross dead. Nota bene, please, that the oldest of them was 22–and most were teenagers.
If you find typos in these documents, I would appreciate a notification. And, as always, if you find this material useful in your practice, I would be grateful to hear what you think of it. I seek your peer review.
Mark's Text Terminal 