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Literary Review
Rasta time in free verse
He's a poet in search of politics. He's a crusader who believes in justice for all. He's a Rastafarian who views paganism as the original world religion.
Could it be a coincidence, then, that BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH is one of Britain's most popular overseas cultural ambassadors today? Whether in Chennai or Kolkata, Argentina or Johannesburg, Fiji or China, he mingles spontaneously with the masses because, as he puts it, "I create poetry to reach people."
Zephaniah held a workshop at the British Council, Chennai. The audience included teachers, writers, publishers and playwrights. As he shared his poetry and his life with us, his passion for kung fu and football, Vegan food and banknotes, we found ourselves in tears from total identification with this dreadlocked, charismatic performance poet.
London-based Zephaniah's life has been as free-spirited as his poetry. He was short-listed for a fellowship at Cambridge University and later for Oxford Professor of poetry. A former Writer in Residence for the city of Liverpool with the Africa Arts Council, his poetry books include The Dread Affair (1985), Inna Liverpool (1990), Rasta Time in Palestine (1991), City Psalms (1992), and Propa Propaganda (1996). His popular albums span "Dub Ranting" (1982), "Rasta" (1982) and "Us and Dem" (1990). This exuberant non-conformist has edited The Bloomsbury Book of Love Poems (1999) and written a novel for teenagers, Face. Naturally, he has appeared in or been the subject of numerous television shows. Zephaniah's 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."
Recently, he was embroiled in a controversy when the British police force wanted to tap his success to recruit a multi-racial force. Zephaniah updates us spiritedly in a editorial page comment in The Independent, about being stopped by the police five times in a week in 1999 as he drove from poetry gig to gig, "It happens all the time to Black people and how many bother to complain? I ask the police if they really want someone who is taking them to court also fronting their recruitment campaign?"
At the 27th British Council Cambridge seminar on The Contemporary Writer in the United Kingdom, Zephaniah shared an evening of his poetry, evoking sadhus and sentries, machismo and cultural conflict, racism and slavery, by sleight of word. Excerpts from a post-performance interview with ADITI DE.
What sparked the poetry latent in you?
I JUST love playing with words. When I hear people talking, I don't just hear the words, I hear the rhythm. (Laughing) 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.
I had a very unfortunate childhood because my father was very violent towards my mother, so we spent a lot of time running away from him, from city to city. I've never met a child who's been to more schools than me. In fact, the first time I was ever in a police station, it was for stabbing my father. He was trying to kill my mother, so all I could do to distract him was to get on top of him, trying to stab him with a little knife.
I grew up in Handworth, which is known for its Jamaicans and Sikhs. I learnt to speak a little Punjabi, a little Urdu, alongside my English. I became a wild teenager and got into trouble with the police. I was sent to a place outside Birmingham where they stick bad boys. Later, I did more serious things and ended up going to prison, where I used poetry to entertain people. That's when we had the racist National Front in Britain. At one time, when I came out, I said to myself. "If I go back to prison, it'll be for something political. It's not going to be for stealing a wallet." I could see what my poetry could do politically. I haven't looked back since.
Your voice is so radically different from the mainstream of British poetry...
In my community, they question you if are not political. When I was growing up, we hated tennis and golf, which we associated with the upper classes. We didn't enjoy the English countryside. We didn't see daffodils. We saw marijuana plants. If we wrote about the green English countryside, it was about our lack of access to it. (Thoughtfully) We'd write love poetry about walking home with our girlfriends. Then, on our way home, we'd get beaten by the racists. My love poetry is about people loving each other.
I feel love can rule in a much more profound way than war does at the moment. If I ever have a headstone, these are the words I'd want on it: "He tried to love everybody." That includes the animals, every living body.
When you travel the world, how closely do you engage with local people?
When I was in Kolkata in 1999, I was staying at the Oberoi hotel. It's so grand! I just walked around the corner, where people were sleeping on the road; rats were nibbling at children's ears. I was flabbergasted. It was 2 a.m. I started talking to these people. I said: "I'm doing a performance tomorrow, why don't you come?" They just looked back at me. So, I decided to perform for them. They woke each other up, they all gathered round me from these shop doorways where the sleep. They so appreciated it. They wanted to pay me.
I've just come back from Fiji, where tourism has gone down since the coup. I found children sleeping on the streets. When the prostitutes earn some money, they give them a few pence. A child who saw me on TV said: "Man, they won't let us come to your reading. They think we're vermin." So, I did a reading just for them. My poetry is for everybody. I perform it here in the grand setting of a Cambridge college and I perform it on the streets of Kolkata.
You'd mentioned the idea of an anti-slavery movement to provoke an apology from the white governments. Are you serious?
Young, black people in Britain have a very low self-esteem. They think our history starts with the end of slavery. They're being told they will be good at sports, at cricket, at football; they'll be good boxers. But they won't be astronauts, scientists, you know. We're being told that western people invented civilisation, which is rubbish. There was a system of social security in Egypt when in Britain they were probably still living in caves.
So, I think it's equally important for Black people and for White western society, especially European society, to come to terms with the past. And to start a debate about the legacy of slavery. History books might have to be rewritten.
I was uneducated, I left school at 13. I didn't learn to read and write until I was 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. And I often argue that paganism in its own way is the only true world religion.
What attracted you to the Rastafarian way of life?
The Rastafarian way is both spiritual and political. In the Christian church, you're told: "Don't get too political. Wait till you go to heaven." I'm always telling my Jain friends, "You always want to leave the animals alone, but you're not into animal rights. Why don't you get more involved?"
I don't believe in a Christian god or a Rastafarian god, but I have a spiritual aspect to my being, (Passionately) I want justice in heaven, but I want some of it here. Rastafarianism allows you to do those things, but it also allows you to read the Koran and other scriptures.
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