One little interview with Benjamin Zephaniah...

Benjamin Zephaniah is an inspirational person, and I love teaching my classes about his poetry, and expanding their ideas about who a poet is. He is a vibrant, inspirational and truly creative soul. I am fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to interview Benjamin Zephaniah as an undergraduate working for the student newspaper at Exeter University. A copy of the article, as printed in Exeposé newspaper in 2009 is included below.

“Britain’s too lazy for a revolution”.

Exeposé talks to Benjamin Zephaniah about politics, Bob Marley, and why poetry’s not going anywhere…

Dr. Benjamin Zephaniah is undeniably and effortlessly cool. His commanding, enthusiastic presence captivates audiences as he brings his poetry alive in his performance. The Benjamin Zephaniah I talk to before his show is calmer and more guarded than the onstage poet, but his warmth and refreshing honesty are compelling and obvious. He explained how his mum hates seeing him in interviews claiming that his real personality is the figure that comes alive on stage.

Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah was born in Birmingham and grew up in the suburb of Handsworth, which he called the Jamaican capital of Europe. Leading a less than conventional life, he left full-time education at fourteen, and after serving a prison sentence for burglary, turned his life around and published his first book of poetry, Pen Rhythm, at the age of 22. Since then, he has written 15 poetry volumes, four novels, and released numerous musical records. He has written stage plays, radio plays and has experience acting and presenting for television and radio. In 2003, he famously rejected an OBE, claiming that the word empire reminded him of slavery and oppression.

Zephaniah describes writing his poems as unpredictable: 

“You just hear something. Sometimes I hear a phrase and I just think, ‘I like that phrase and I’m gonna build on it’”. 

Much of Zephaniah’s poetry is intensely rhythmic and almost musical in its performance. He attributes this to his background growing up being inspired by a long tradition of oral poetry. “There was a woman called Louise Bennett, sometimes we call her Miss Lou, she was like the national poet of Jamaica, unofficially. She used to do poetry in Jamaican dialect and I listened to cassettes of her and that was inspiring. In terms of my thinking, and I know this is a little cliché, it was Bob Marley. I always thought he was a kind of poet.” Zephaniah talked excitedly about the opportunity he was given to record a single with the Wailers, laughing that he initially thought the producer was joking.

For Zephaniah writing his novels is an entirely different process. 

“I tend to like to write in real time. For me it’s not a kind of intellectual exercise, I will literally do it. I haven’t done any writing courses or anything like that. I don’t come from a family of writing. I’m just making it up as I go along”. 

Zephaniah’s novels such as Gangsta Rap and Refugee Boy, although written for teenagers, are a far cry from a fantasy happy-ever-after world. “It’s quite ironic that I have the same publisher and editor as Harry Potter. I write a big opposite. My novels are in reality; I like my books to be gritty and down to earth. I can’t tie it up, like it’s a novel and I’ve come to the end and I’ve gotta tie everything up. I’m writing about reality and that’s the way I’ve gotta do it”.

Despite formally never finishing his education, Dr. Zephaniah has received fifteen honorary doctorates, including one from the University of Exeter in 2006. Zephaniah explained, “I think you can have education and not be educated. I know lots of people who are educated and don’t have any common sense. Education’s important, because a lot of the people who, all around the world, in the developing world and even here in Europe, people who oppress people, and I use the word purposefully, are usually educated. Educated people know how to manipulate. We have to be educated in simple terms just to know how to confront them, how to deal with them and how to argue with them”. He passionately emphasised 

“you’ve gotta keep questioning, you’ve gotta stay curious, your mind’s gotta be adventurous, not just photocopying.”

Zephaniah is renowned for his political views, and the list of charities and causes he supports is impressively long. I questioned what role students can have in political movements today, or whether he believes youth today is apathetic. He responded: “Students are very willing to come out on the streets when it’s about their money. I think that’s a sign of the time. But generally speaking I don’t go along with this line that a lot of old people say about young people being apathetic. A lot of young people just don’t know where to go. There’s not much difference between the left and the right anymore. A long time ago it was very, very clear.”

“People who think that ‘I can do nothing all year and then vote when a politician comes round four or five years later, knocking on my door, kissing my baby and telling me this that and the other. Then I go and vote and I think I’m playing a part in the democratic process’, well that’s apathy because you think you’re doing something. You’re doing nothing, you’re just playing their game.

“Yet, when I wanna go on the streets and protest, it’s not time to vote yet but I feel passionately about it, you call me a militant you know. I’m the one that’s being more democratic, I’m the one that’s being involved in politics because I’m saying I care about something”.

I asked him how the role of poetry can play a part and whether art can influence politics. Zephaniah paused before his answer, and in a more reserved tone explained: “In Britain I don’t think we inspire people to that extreme but I do think we add to the debate, and we do get people thinking. I think Britain’s too lazy for a revolution; people are too busy watching soap operas and stuff like that. I think we influence individuals and later on those individuals, some of them will go on to positions of influence and power.”

 Zephaniah’s wisdom combined with his thoughtful anecdotes and experiences are the only indications of his true age. Although fifty-one, Zephaniah’s waist-length black dreadlocks and his youthful style of dress liken him to a man half his age. 

“I don’t really get on very well with people my own age because they’re just all the time complaining about young people” 

he explained. “They all just seem so miserable. People very quickly forget that they were young. Of course they remember some things, but the really fundamental things they forget really easily. They talk about young people in a way which sometimes would be unacceptable if they were talking about black people or something.”  Zephaniah’s friends tell him it’s because he’s never had a mortgage and never had children, but he simply stated “I just know that my heart is with young people. When I here people arguing and talking about youth and that, I tend to gravitate towards the side of the younger people”. Attributing his fitness and health to a love of martial arts, and meditation, he claimed he has always invested in his body. His eyes lit up as he described how he plays for an over forties football team, but had to bring his birth certificate in to prove his age to his team mates. He exclaimed ‘I don’t just like the youth, I like youth, I like being fit, I like being able to do things I like being able to react very quickly which is something a lot of older people can’t do.” More demurely he admitted, “I don’t really like the idea of growing old. I like the idea of having wisdom and knowing more things, but I don’t like the idea of growing old.”

Zephaniah has many achievements to be proud of but shows no signs of slowing down in the near future. Continuing to passionately support his many political and charity causes, as well as writing a screen play for the BBC and trying to find time to write his fifth novel, he splits his time between his home in Lincolnshire and his apartment in China, where he spends his Summer months training, meditating and practising martial arts. “One of the things I’m most proud of in my lifetime is that me, with a couple of other people, we created a performance poetry scene in Britain. There was none years ago, in the early 80s, there was none really. After the 60s beat poets, it was all dead really in performance poetry.” He believes the performance poetry scene will continue to thrive as a lot more rappers will turn to poetry. Despite the fact that book sales are down, Zephaniah is optimistic. “Some people are reporting almost the death of poetry, it’s just that they don’t go to listen to poetry, they only go to get it in Waterstones. It’s a different thing altogether. I’ve found that people who like poetry don’t care what gender you are, if you’re gay or if you’re straight, if you’re black or you’re white, it’s what you say. As he prepared for his show he left us with the assertion that 

“poetry‘s not going anywhere. It just goes on and on and on”.