It is difficult to express Benjamin Zephaniah in words; This man was strength, energy, explosion. He was so buoyant that his feet barely touched the ground. Even his fears were with him as he toasted his poetry, a term he preferred to rap.
I first met him in Kilkenny, Ireland in the late 80s. He asked me to be the opening act. I was scared, but he couldn’t have supported me more. I took my mom on this trip and she fell in love with Benjamin, like all mothers who listen to his triumphant “I love me, dirt, and I love me.” At that time, I hardly gave lectures and was shocked to see the queues for Benjamin on the street. It was like talking to a rock star. We had to do the same show twice to avoid crowds.
I’ve never seen anyone perform like Benjamin. He half sang and half danced his poems. The whole Irish crowd was with him. You couldn’t go and listen to Benjamin Zephaniah and remain unchanged. He was such a public poet that his readings became a call and response. Audiences didn’t just listen to or learn from Benjamin, they loved him. They not only admired him and were amused by him, but also idolized him. He amazed us all. He shook the world of poetry. It was a special mixture of rhythms and rhymes; his ear was tuned to the music of language.
Later I drove Benjamin, his girlfriend and my mother back to Dublin. In the rental car we shouted, “I love myself dirtier,” this time led by my mother, to give her a taste of Benjamin’s half-Brummy, half-Jamaican accent. We stopped at a cafe on the highway and Benjamin went looking for something vegan. And then he told us about his passion for veganism. He was a vegan long before veganism existed.
It was a pleasure to travel with Mr. Zephaniah. I could happily drive around Ireland while he sat in the back of the car, toasting and giggling. Among Zephaniah you were never exalted. Just hearing his name before he entered the room made you happy because his name symbolized things. Feminist man. Peace-loving person. Rastafarian. Martial arts man. Teetotaler. Happy man. Thinking man. Happy man. A neatly dressed man. Talented man. Benjamin was a person who could reach everyone and show things differently. “I used to think poets were boring,” he said in a famous poem, “until I became one.” Never boring, always exciting, Benjamin had a talent for words even as a child. In his mother’s church he was called the prophet Zephaniah.
Although he left school at 13, he could barely read or write, and at 17 he was severely beaten by the police, which he so movingly wrote about in his poem “The Policeman Keeps Kicking Me to Death”; despite the fact that he grew up in a family where his father beat his mother; Despite the time he spent in brothels and prisons, he was neither broken nor defeated. Benjamin took everything life had to offer him and turned it into poetry. With the hand of a magician and a wise man’s understanding of the power of redemption, Benjamin’s work has imbued children, youth, and elders with a sense of wonder.
He opened the House of Poetry and let everyone in. To listen to Zephaniah was to join him, to want to go with him. His poems encourage us to never give up and keep the flame of hope alive. I’ll even give up turkey this Christmas. “Be kind to your turkeys this Christmas because turkeys just want to have fun.”
His death was a profound shock to the world of poetry and beyond. He was a pioneering poet who danced and blazed new trails around the world—paths that others could follow. He is always generous to the poets behind him and kindly offers them his brotherly hand. He will be remembered for his limitless ability to see things from a different perspective. Feel like a refugee boy. For his human soul. For the protests he expressed and the stories he told. We will remember him as a man ahead of his time, a man who spoke fearlessly about the things that upset him, like not being able to have children, who questioned black masculinity and charted a new path. And he will be remembered for his piercing honesty and radiant light.
This is the only consolation: the light of Benjamin Zephaniah will never go out. He was so ahead of his time that it will be some time before we catch up with him.
Source: I News
I am Mario Pickle and I work in the news website industry as an author. I have been with 24 News Reporters for over 3 years, where I specialize in entertainment-related topics such as books, films, and other media. My background is in film studies and journalism, giving me the knowledge to write engaging pieces that appeal to a wide variety of readers.