Most of Johnson's poetry is political, dealing mainly with the experiences of being an African-Caribbean in Britain: "Writing was a political act and poetry was a cultural weapon...", he told an interviewer in 2008. However, he has also written about other issues, such as British foreign policy and the death of anti-racist marcher Blair Peach. Johnson wrote "Reggae fi Dada" on the death of his father in 1982, blaming social conditions. His most celebrated poems were written during the government of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The poems contain graphic accounts of the racist police brutality occurring at the time (cf. "Sonny's Lettah"). Johnson's poetry makes clever use of the unstandardised transcription of Jamaican patois.