Benjamin Zephaniah was a poet who was born in and resided in Birmingham (the second largest city in the UK), and later lived in London. He described how, after he left Birmingham, he felt compelled to endorse it, something he did very well until his death in 2023. “When I travelled out to London and I started to live outside Birmingham I then […] started to big Birmingham up, if you like. But sometimes that’s what you have to do, you have to leave a place to realise how you’re attached to it.” (Benjamin Zephaniah, 2012).
Below is Incy reading one of his poems, which describes changes that took place in Birmingham and the affect on the community.
His style of poetry is referred to as dub poetry and she’s still exploring this different poetic style through Zephaniah’s work, as well as by attending a forthcoming workshop with another dub poet soon.
Zephaniah spoke and wrote with a lovely Jamaican accent, lending a beautiful sound quality to his poems. In Mama Appleseed’s best-loved Zephaniah poem, Dis Poetry, Zephaniah says “Dis poetry is Verbal Riddim“. Incy liked the sound of the phrase “verbal riddim”.
The poem details the importance of the spoken word and that some poems, whilst not being afraid of being in print form, benefit the most by being heard as well as seen. The ‘d’ sound that appears in the poem is an constant and the Jamaican accent lends itself very well to the repetition of the letter ‘d’ and the alliterative lines.
Mama Appleseed studied Zephaniah’s poetry at school and had the pleasure of meeting him. He is known affectionately as “The People’s Poet” due to the accessibility of his poetry, and he continues to be missed by the poetry community. To learn more about him visit his website, which continues to be run by his wife, Qian Zephaniah.
If you would like to read a Zephaniah book, Incy recommends his book Nature Trail, “An uplifting celebration of nature and the wonder of the world around us.
At the bottom of my garden, there’s a hedgehog and a frog,
And a lot of creepy-crawlies living underneath a log . . .
All around us, from parks to gardens and flowerpots to pavements, there’s a world of wonder just waiting to be discovered. Why not look a little closer and see what you find?
This joyful celebration of nature reminds us all to take a closer look at the world around us, and enjoy the wonder of nature wherever we find it. Packed with animals and minibeasts galore, this imaginative rhyming text is perfect for reading aloud.” You can buy this book by clicking on the cover below.