Benjamin Zephaniah Poetry Reading

[Karoline]

Benjamin Zephaniah. Wow, what an inspiration. Highly dyslexic, he left school at 13 being unable to read or write, had constant brushes with the law before turning his hand to poetry and making it accessible to all kinds of people in all kinds of places. His self-confessed mission is to fight the staid, academic image of poetry, thus turning his poetry readings into theatrical-style performances.

He won the BBC Radio 4 Young Playwrights Festival Award in 1998 and was the recipient of at least sixteen honorary doctorates. A ward at Ealing Hospital was also named in his honour. His second novel, Refugee Boy, was the recipient of the 2002 Portsmouth Book Award in the Longer Novel category. In 1982, he released an album, Rasta, which featured the Wailers performing for the first time since the death of Bob Marley, acting as a tribute to Nelson Mandela. It topped the charts in Yugoslavia, and due to its success Mandela invited Zephaniah to host the president's Two Nations Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London, in 1996. As an actor, he had a major role in the BBC's Peaky Blinders between 2013 and 2022.

In 2003, he was offered appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) but publicly rejected the honour, stating that: "I get angry when I hear that word 'empire'; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers, brutalised".

Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Springer was born on 15 April 1958,[1][2][3] in the Handsworth district of Birmingham, England, where he was also raised.[4][5] He referred to this area as the "Jamaican capital of Europe".[6] He was the son of Oswald Springer, a Barbadian postman, and Leneve (ne Honeyghan),[7] a Jamaican nurse, and had a total of seven younger siblings, including his twin sister, Velda.[2][3][8]

Well, for most of the early part of my life I thought poetry was an oral thing. We used to listen to tapes from Jamaica of Louise Bennett, who we think of as the queen of all dub poets. For me, it was two things: it was words wanting to say something and words creating rhythm. Written poetry was a very strange thing that white people did.[9]

His first performance was in church when he was 11 years old, resulting in him adopting the name Zephaniah (after the biblical prophet),[2] and by the age of 15, his poetry was already known among Handsworth's Afro-Caribbean and Asian communities.[10]

He was educated at Broadway School, Birmingham, from which he was expelled aged 13, unable to read or write due to dyslexia.[8][3][2] He was sent to Boreatton Park approved school in Baschurch, Shropshire.[11]

As a youth, he spent time in borstal and in his late teens received a criminal record and served a prison sentence for burglary.[2][8][13][14] Tired of the limitations of being a black poet communicating with black people only, he decided to expand his audience, and in 1979, at the age of 22, he headed to London, where his first book would be published the next year.[15][16]

They happened around me. Back then, racism was very in your face. There was the National Front against black and foreign people and the police were also very racist. I got stopped four times after I bought a BMW when I became successful with poetry. I kept getting stopped by the police so I sold it.

Having moved to London, Zephaniah became actively involved in a workers' co-operative in Stratford, which led to the publication of his first book of poetry, Pen Rhythm (Page One Books, 1980). He had earlier been turned down by other publishers who did not believe there would be an audience for his work, and "they didn't understand it because it was supposed to be performed".[21] Three editions of Pen Rhythm were published. Zephaniah said that his mission was to fight the dead image of poetry in academia, and to "take [it] everywhere" to people who do not read books, so he turned poetry readings into concert-like performances,[15] sometimes with The Benjamin Zephaniah Band.[15][22]

His second collection of poetry, The Dread Affair: Collected Poems (1985), contained a number of poems attacking the British legal system.[23] Rasta Time in Palestine (1990), an account of a visit to the Palestinian occupied territories, contained poetry and travelogue.[24]

Zephaniah was poet-in-residence at the chambers of Michael Mansfield QC, and sat in on the inquiry into Bloody Sunday and other cases,[25] these experiences led to his Too Black, Too Strong poetry collection (2001).[8] We Are Britain! (2002) is a collection of poems celebrating cultural diversity in Britain.[23]

Zephaniah's second novel Refugee Boy, about a 14-year-old refugee from Ethiopia and Eritrea,[33] was published in August 2001. It was the recipient of the 2002 Portsmouth Book Award in the Longer Novel category,[26][34] and went on to sell 88,000 copies.[22] In 2013, Refugee Boy was adapted as a play by Zephaniah's long-time friend Lemn Sissay, staged at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.[35][36][37]

In May 2011, Zephaniah accepted a year-long position as poet-in-residence at Keats House in Hampstead, London, his first residency role for more than ten years. In accepting the role, he commented: "I don't do residencies, but Keats is different. He's a one-off, and he has always been one of my favourite poets."[38][39] The same year, he was appointed professor of poetry and creative writing at Brunel University London.[2][40][41]

Zephaniah's frank autobiography, The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah, was published to coincide with his 60th birthday in 2018, when BBC Sounds broadcast him reading his own text. "I'm still as angry as I was in my twenties," he said.[43][44] The book was nominated as "autobiography of the year" at the National Book Awards.[4]

In 1982, Zephaniah released the album Rasta, which featured the Wailers' first recording since the death of Bob Marley as well as a tribute to the political prisoner (later to become South African president) Nelson Mandela. The album gained Zephaniah international prestige[56] and topped the Yugoslavian pop charts.[10][56] It was because of this recording that he was introduced to Mandela, and in 1996, Mandela requested that Zephaniah host the president's Two Nations Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London.[18][57]

Zephaniah became a vegetarian at the age of 11,[61] and then became a vegan at the age of 13,[62][63] when he read poems about "shimmering fish floating in an underwater paradise, and birds flying free in the clear blue sky".

He was an honorary patron of The Vegan Society,[64] Viva! (Vegetarians' International Voice for Animals),[65] and EVOLVE! Campaigns,[66] and was an animal rights advocate. In 2004, he wrote the foreword to Keith Mann's book From Dusk 'til Dawn: An insider's view of the growth of the Animal Liberation Movement, a book about the Animal Liberation Front. In August 2007, he announced that he would be launching the Animal Liberation Project, alongside People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.[67] In February 2001, his book The Little Book of Vegan Poems was published by AK Press.[68]

In 2012, Zephaniah worked with anti-racism organisation Newham Monitoring Project, with whom he made a video,[70][71] and Tower Hamlets Summer University (Futureversity) about the impact of Olympic policing on black communities.[72] In that same year, he also wrote about cases of racially abusive language employed by police officers and "the reality of police racism that many of us experience all the time".[73]

Zephaniah spoke in favour of a British Republic and the dis-establishment of the Crown.[78] In 2015, he called for Welsh and Cornish to be taught in English schools, saying: "Hindi, Chinese and French are taught [in schools], so why not Welsh? And why not Cornish? They're part of our culture."[79]

Zephaniah supported Amnesty International in 2005, speaking out against homophobia in Jamaica, saying: "For many years Jamaica was associated with freedom fighters and liberators, so it hurts when I see that the home of my parents is now associated with the persecution of people because of their sexual orientation."[80]

Zephaniah was a supporter of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and joined demonstrations calling for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, describing the activism as the "Anti Apartheid movement". He was also a supporter of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement.[82][83]

Zephaniah self-identified as an anarchist;[84] observing in a 2022 interview: "...there are places that live without government and live peacefully and happily. A lack of power means people of course aren't fighting over it and the main objective of society is to look after each other."[85] He appeared in literature to support changing the British electoral system from first-past-the-post to alternative vote for electing members of parliament to the House of Commons in the Alternative Vote referendum in 2011.[86] In a 2017 interview, commenting on the ongoing Brexit negotiations, Zephaniah stated: "For left-wing reasons, I think we should leave the EU but the way that we're leaving is completely wrong."[87]

In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, he signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated: "Labour's election manifesto under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few."[88][89]

Zephaniah was awarded at least 16 honorary doctorates,[92] by institutions including the University of North London (in 1998),[1] the University of Central England (1999), Staffordshire University (2001),[93] London South Bank University (2003), the University of Exeter, the Open University (2004),[94] the University of Westminster (2006), the University of Birmingham (2008)[95] and the University of Hull (DLitt, 2010).[96]

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