Rachel Bolle-Debessay

This chapter explores the creative force of sonic vibration in Caribbean dub poetry, examining how sound operates not simply as ornament or performance, but as a mode of knowledge. Bringing into dialogue poets Linton Kwesi Johnson and Roger Robinson, it reads their work as part of a shared constellation of vibration-based poetics.

Through close readings of poems including Street 66 and Wheel and Come Again, the publication argues that sound is not secondary to meaning, but rather a lived form of recognition, an embodied knowledge shaped by diasporic histories and everyday experience. Recording, repetition and performance reveal how poetic voice evolves across time, transforming each version into a distinct historical moment.

By foregrounding vibration as a connective force, the chapter proposes a way of reading that moves beyond rigid frameworks of nationality, class or genre. It advances the idea that listening with the body opens alternative vocabularies for literary criticism, thereby repositioning sound as a cultural and diasporic archive.

This article reconsiders dub poetry through the lens of theatre. Focusing on Mikey Smith’s “Trainer”, it argues that the poem was composed with performance in mind, revealing a dramaturgical structure embedded within the poetic form itself.

Smith’s poem stages multiple voices and shifting personas, creating a layered narrative that unfolds with a clear dramatic progression. While dub poetry is often discussed primarily in relation to rhythm and musicality, this article foregrounds its theatrical architecture: the entanglement of page and stage, voice and embodiment. The text itself contains the blueprint of performance: through changes in tone, perspective and address, it invites the reader to envision the staging of the poem.

By tracing this entanglement between aural and written dimensions, the article develops a framework for Caribbean performance poetics, reading the two dimensions as mutually constitutive.
In doing so, it contributes to broader debates in Caribbean and postcolonial literary studies by legitimising the aural dimension as a formal innovation and a deliberate aesthetic choice. It also opens a dialogue between theatre studies and dub poetry, expanding the critical vocabulary available for analysing Afro-diasporic literary traditions.

This peer-reviewed article revisits the aesthetic foundations of dub poetry by focusing on an often overlooked element: bass and low frequencies. Through a close reading of Linton Kwesi Johnson’s Street 66, this analysis explores how vocal variation interacts with bass patterns to produce what is described as a “talking bass”.

Rather than treating music as background influence or cultural context, the article argues that bass functions as a structuring force within the poem’s aesthetic. Variations in the poet’s voice, shifts in tone, pace and emphasis, work in counterpoint with different bass patterns. The voice does not merely accompany rhythm; it enters into an intimate relation with it.
By comparing written and recorded versions, this publication demonstrates how musical presence is crafted both through stylistic choices on the page and through performative modulation in sound. This approach challenges the tendency to reduce dub poetry to sociological or political readings, foregrounding its formal and aesthetic innovations.

Moving beyond dub poetry alone, the article suggests that bass culture reshapes how literary form can be understood, offering fresh perspectives on the ways music and literature co-produce aesthetic meaning.

I contributed to Poetry Off the Page, Around the Globe, a conference dedicated to the growing field of poetry performance studies. The event brought together scholars, practitioners, and performers, with an open mic fostering a live network of exchange across international poetry scenes and engaging dialogues between research, performance, and community.

Co-authored with Julie Dorner, this article reflects on the Jebena project at the MEG. It examines how participatory artistic practices with young migrants can reshape the sharing of knowledge in museum contexts. By detailing practical and methodological choices, it contributes to discussions on intercultural participation and inclusive museum practice.

This article explores the difficulties adolescents faced during online schooling in the Covid‑19 lockdown. I highlighted overlooked challenges, including the disappearance of peer support. She showed how targeted interventions can mitigate educational inequalities, stressing the importance of attentive, community-focused solutions in times of disruption.

This interview with Professor Paul Gilroy was conducted by in September 2018. A Professor of American and English Literature at King’s College London, he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in April 2018 in recognition of his work as a cultural historian and critical race theorist, whose scholarship has been formative in Rachel’s own research journey.

In this episode, I reflected on how bass acts as more than a musical element in dub poetry. I explored how the choice of sound is never neutral since it signals an alignment, a relation to memory and/or political discourse.

I considered how bass can convey meanings that exceed words by engaging temporalities and collective resonances that extend beyond the moment of recitation. The episode argues that the poem's sociopolitical engagement lives not only in what is said, but in the collective resonances and temporalities carried by the sonic soundscape itself.