Mutabaruka

<p>Mutabaruka (formerly Allan Hope) was born in Rae Town, Kingston on 26th December, 1952.  After primary education he attended Kingston Technical High School, where he was a student for four years.  Trained in Electronics, he left his first job after about six months and took employment at the Jamaica Telephone Company Limited.   During his time at the Telephone Company he began to examine Rastafarianism and to find it more meaningful than either the Roman Catholicism of his upbringing or the political radicalism into which he had drifted.  </p>
<p align="justify"><em>M </em>uta was the first well-publicized voice in the new wave of poets growing since the early 1970's.  They have developed a living relationship between a poet and a fairly wide audience such as, in Jamaica, only Louise Bennett has achieved before them.   Early work by Muta regularly appeared in Swing , a monthly that gave fullest coverage to the pop music scene.  Introducing Outcry (March, 1973) John A. L. Golding Jr. wrote: "In July 1971, Swing Magazine published for the first time a poem by Allan Mutabaruka...Our readers were ecstatic.  Since then, and almost in consecutive issues, we have derived much pleasure in further publication of this brother's works... They tell a story common to most black people born in the ghetto... And when Muta writes, it's loud and clear."   That his poems in Sun and Moon (1976), a volume shared with Faybiene, are quieter is one indication of Muta's particular development.  </p>