I and I Bob Marley

Review
By Chuck Foster, <i>Reggae Festival Guide</i>

Medina’s insightful freestyle poetry and Watson’s gorgeous illustrations combine word pictures and image poems in a fest for the eye and inner ear as creative in their presentation as Marley was in his. Poet and painter see eye-to-eye in this visionary adaptation of scenes - including many early scenes - from the life of the Rastaman from Nine Miles. . . . Marley was one-of-a-kind and this book goes a long way towards capturing the one-of-a-kind spirit he loosed on the land. Medina, an associate professor of creative writing at Howard University, and Watson, an artist and illustrator whose work graces issues of this Reggae Festival Guide, put forward exemplary work in this touching and timeless telling of Marley’s life: his experiences as a young man, and then Marley’s impact on the world at large. Medina and Watson offer their own inspired assimilation of Marley, adding unique poetic perspective to the view of a man who touched so many. Medina puts himself inside of young Bob Marley’s mind with believable and heart-rending acuity. Equally inspired are Watson’s beautiful paintings. Illustrations for poems “Underneath a Plum Tree,” “Wailing Wailers,” “Song in My Heart,” “Hope Road,” and “I am the Boy” are iconic and capture the spirit of the book, reflecting Bob’s life in a way few others have.