RANGA Shankara, Bangalore.
March 17. Benjamin Zephaniah, the charismatic British performance poet, is on
stage. A banner backdrop cues us in to him: “Poet. Prophet. Activist.”
The dreadlocked Rastafarian of Jamaican
origin offers dramatic poetry that seethes with politics. Every word connects
with his concerns – the Iraq
war, animal rights, the body beautiful and macho men, race, class and gender.
Most deeply, a quest for co-existence and love for Planet Earth. In a trice, we
all bond with him. No wonder he has been one of the British Council’s most
popular cultural ambassadors since the 1980s, equally beloved in China and India,
Fiji or Argentina, South
Africa or Australia.
Or even at schools across Britain.
On his twelfth Indian visit and
fourth tour, Zephaniah touches Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Kolkata, en
route to Sri Lanka.
He shies away from Queen’s English and pucca public school conformism. He
celebrates the spoken word, the lively language of the British streets. What
the spotlight misses is the secret Zephaniah. The one who learnt kalaripayittu near Kochi or is moved to tears because a feral
cat in an English garden is put to sleep because it isn’t a pet!
Zephaniah was shortlisted for a fellowship
at Cambridge University, and later for Oxford
Professor of Poetry. His poem, “The
London Breed,” has found a place of honour in the British
Museum: “I love this concrete jungle still/ with all its sirens and its speed/
the people here united will create a kind of London breed.”
His journey to reluctant celebrity
has been long and hard. A troubled childhood, dealing with a violent father in
Handsworth, “the English capital of Jamaica.” Dropping out of school at
13, learning to read and write at night school at 21. “I got my education from
travelling, from talking to people, debating and asking questions about their
society. That really excites me. All these observations about life make
fascinating poetry,” Zephaniah says.
A far cry from Shakespeare or
Shelley, who figure on his icon list, Zephaniah is “an equal opportunities
poet.” His working class poetry is attuned to slavery, racism, bigotry, and
every possible battle for justice.
What triggered his creativity? “I
just love playing with words. When I heard people talking, I didn’t just hear
the words, I heard the rhythm. I was surprised one day when somebody told me it
was poetry. I didn’t know there was a word for it! My mother says I started
doing poetry when I was about five years old, as soon as I was able to put
words together,” Zephaniah recalls in an interview in Bangalore.
Taking in the current British
performance poetry scene, embracing Asians, gays and lesbians alike, Zephaniah
adds, “I create poetry to reach people, whether they are kids sleeping on the
streets of Kolkata or those attending a literary seminar at Cambridge. Or friends from Jalandhar, who
don’t even know I’m a poet. I play football with the kids there.”
He has vivid memories of poetic
activism, though. Of reciting ‘Free South
Africa’ at a rally in Trafalgar Square in front of South Africa House. It became
a rallying cry against apartheid. “When another unpublished poem was chanted
back to me by thousands of people, I remember thinking: It’s been published in
their hearts. That’s the kind of publishing I’m interested in,” Zephaniah adds.
Yet, he has made the grade as a published
poet including The Dread Affair
(1985), Inna Liverpool (1990), Rasta Time in Palestine (1991), City Psalms (1992), Propa Propaganda (1996), and Too
Black, Too Strong (2001). The exuberant non-conformist has edited The Bloomsbury Book of Love Poems (1999),
and written three novels for teenagers.
Can an artist today be apolitical? “I
think you could, but you’d be doing your art a disservice,” responds Zephaniah.
“If there’s a platform available, black people would make a statement. Writing
about the personal is probably what I haven’t done as much as I should have
done. I feel people in Iraq
or Sri Lanka
are more important than me.”
What sets his poetry apart?
Paraphrasing Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, the globe-trotter says, “When we
Caribbean poets write, we always write with a voice in our heads. When we put
it on the page, we’re trying to capture that voice. I think he extended that to
Asian writers as well. It’s a poetry of sound. When you read it, I want you to
hear it.”
A poet who is recognized in British
TV studios, hotels or brand outlets, Zephaniah continues to be anti-establishment.
He declined an Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 2003. He even has refused
to front a British police campaign to recruit a more multicultural force after
constant trouble with ‘institutionalized racism.’
Today, with a flat in Beijing, and a country house in Lincolnshire, what makes him tick? “I’ve
always been a very independent thinker. I once argued that paganism is the only
true world religion,” Zephaniah says. “In the Eighties, I travelled to
pilgrimage sites like Jerusalem and Jordan. I came
away feeling close to god, but less religious. But I’m still an animal rights
hardliner. I still won’t consume or wear anything from an animal. If they’re
putting makeup on my face for a TV programme, I check that it’s not
animal-tested.”
How does being British fuel his
poetry? “I’m living in Britain.
I’ve got Jamaican rhythms going around in my head. I’m listening to bhangra
music. I practice martial arts like kung-fu. Before we start, we do Chinese
chanting, play some Chinese music. I would be a brick if I wasn’t taking in all
these influences,” he confesses.
In an introduction to Too Black, Too Strong, Zephaniah wrote,
“I live in two places, Britain and the world, and it is my duty to explore the
state of justice in both of them… speaking
my mind as I go, ranting, praising and criticizing everything that makes me
what I am. But this is what Britain
can do. It is probably one of the only places that can take an angry,
illiterate, uneducated, ex-hustler, rebellious Rastafarian, and give him the
opportunity to represent the country.”
That was the gift that Zephaniah
bore to us in India.
From the Rasta road, with love.
(Originally in The Week magazine, 2007)
