Poems published in their hearts
National Canal Laureate Roy McFarlane on being inspired by the great Benjamin Zephaniah — and two poems from the recently published Dis Poetry: Selected Poems & Lyrics
Benjamin Zephaniah spoke of making poetry simple and accessible to all people. He didn’t just want to read poems, he wanted to perform poems, rooted in the oral traditions, bringing poetry to life. His mantra regarding poetry can be found in the powerful poem ‘Dis Poetry’. “Dis poetry is not afraid of going ina book / Still dis poetry need ears fe hear an eyes fe have a look.”
Benjamin’s desire for poetry needing ‘ears fe hear an eyes fe have a look’ was honed in Handsworth, the West Midlands town where he grew up — first as a young teenager preaching in church in the 1970s and then surviving bullies in the school yard by making people smile with his words. By the time he was 21 he was writing and performing poems for anti-racist demonstrations against the National Front.
Benjamin straddled the world of reggae and sound systems as well as the punk and rock scene where he could be seen on TV on Channel 4 chanting lyrics. His was a face and voice for those who struggled to see representation of themselves on the screen or in books back in the 1980s.
His influence on multi-cultural Britain cannot be overstated. With his flashing locs, energetic performances jumping and prancing on the stage, speaking a mix of Brummie-Jamaican patois, he blazed a trail and opened doors of literature for others of colour to follow.
He became a national treasure, the people’s laureate after refusing an OBE in 2003. As he wrote at the time: ‘Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that word ‘empire’; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised.’ He was able to be all things to all people through his poetry, the voice of the oppressed rocking the stage with punks and rockers, chanting the struggles of the working class, fighting against apartheid and other world struggles.
My first encounter with Benjamin’s poetry was as a Youth and Community worker. I delved into the works of Linton Kwesi Johnson, Zephaniah and Jean ‘Binta’ Breeze. They were like older brothers and sisters who had experienced the harsh realities of racism, such as the notorious ‘sus’ laws of stop and search. Artists merging their Caribbean roots with British culture to make something new. They were the vanguard of black poets and writers articulating and chanting the Black British experience.
His lived experience was at the heart of his poetry, from ‘Dis Policeman Keeps on Kicking Me to Death’ which he said before it was published ‘I had the audience chanting them with me. My poems were published in their hearts.’ This was the same lived experience I could share with young black men excluded from schools or drawn to gang culture as I worked on the streets and in community centres of Wolverhampton and Birmingham during the 1990s and the Noughties.
His writing continues to be important today. His message and words underpin communities of poetry, activism and spirituality. A devout Rastafarian, he embodied a journey of belief. We speak often of the spirituality of William Blake and its influence on his writing: the same could be said about Benjamin. In his poem ‘The Spirit Level’ we can find a refrain repeated through the poem, ‘When it comes to the spirit we are colourless / When it comes to the spirit we are one.’
Benjamin spoke warmly of his mother. ‘I luv me mudder, and me mudder luv me’ — she was the power and influence in his life. His mother would tell him Anansi stories of the trickster who would out fox gods. Benjamin was the original Anansi (the famous spider from Jamaican folklore) spinning tales, poetry, novels and plays enchanting and keeping us mesmerised.
He used rhythm and rhyme wrapped in a smile and the simplicity of Caribbean wisdom to warm the hearts of audiences and bamboozle politicians and academics as he stood up for human and animal rights.
I was fortunate to meet the great poet after years of passing each other at events connected to the Stephen Lawrence Report or the marches in memory of Mikey Powell (Benjamin’s cousin who died in police custody in 2003). I met him at a gig after I was made the Birmingham Poet Laureate and said, ‘You may not know me but I’m…’ He interrupted my sentence saying, ‘Of course I know you,’ and reeled off the title of my poetry collection and encouraged me to keep writing.
The last time we talked as we were preparing to be interviewed by Luke Wright on BBC Contains Strong Language in 2022. We talked about the Brummie accent, about our parents and the struggles they went through to make life better for us, the love of our mothers, how we were griots going back to ancient times. His smile beamed even wider when he told me he was working with ancient scripts from the Middle East, spoken by griots thousands of years ago.
Benjamin was a poet of love. After events he would spend as much time as he could with poets, talking about the show or mentoring individuals. If you’ve been to his shows, you’ll know event organisers struggled to close the doors because Benjamin would talk and shake hands with every individual who bought his book and wanted his signature.
His poems tackled hard and difficult subjects but he embraced love. He said ‘Dis poetry’s from inside me / It goes to yu / WID LUV.’ Those capitals are not there by accident: they capitalise everything that Benjamin did in poetry and in his life. He’s truly missed but he leaves a legacy for us to write against injustice, to write with a passion, to embody words and make them come alive.
Roy McFarlane is a poet, writer and former youth and community worker. Born in Birmingham of Jamaican parentage, he spent most of his years living in Wolverhampton and the Black Country; he now lives in Brighton. He is the former Birmingham Poet Laureate and is currently the National Canal Laureate. His collections are published by Nine Arches Press: Beginning With Your Last Breath and The Healing Next Time was shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Award and longlisted for the Jhalak Prize and his third collection, Living by Troubled Waters is out now
He is reading Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide by Atef Abu Saif.
Dis Poetry: Selected Poems and Lyrics by Benjamin Zephaniah is published by Bloodaxe Books
The Traveller, by Benjamin Zephaniah
From Dis Poetry: Selected Poems & Lyrics
I trod over the mountain I trod over the sea, One thing I would like to see is East Ham’s people free, I do get stopped by cops a lot But that don’t bring me down, And I am not afraid to say that I love Canning Town. The bright colours of Green Street And those kids that make me laugh As they make up real rude poems As I jog round Plashet Park, I know every fox on High Street South And every fox knows me, I’ve spent hours upon Beckton Alps And I still can’t bloody ski. I trod over the mountain Rhyming as I go, There are many great poets In sweet Stratford-le-Bow. And I don’t need the TV To see well paid pretenders, Everyday I see the truth, I live with real Eastenders.
The Spirit Level
Written in 1996, from Dis Poetry: Selected Poems & Lyrics
We’re beyond your flag
We’re beyond your nation
We’re beyond the trappings of your race
There’s no need to brag
About your rank and station.
All of us are locked into one place
We’re beyond your flesh
We’re beyond your blood cells
We’re beyond what earthbound eyes can see.
There’s no need to test
There’s no need to guess
We are more than what we seem to be.
When it comes to the spirit we are colourles.
When it comes to the sprit we are one
At the spirit level we no deal with the devil, so racist move along. We’re beyond tradition
We’re beyond your nam.
We’re beyond your tribe, your gang, or styl.
We’re past this condition.
Beyond your pride and shame
We’re beyond that cunning plastic smile.
Where there is no border
Where there is no law.
Where only the one called truth shall reign
We obey no orders.
There we know the score
There where everybody is the same.
When it comes to the spirit we are colourless
When it comes to the sprit we are one.
At the spirit level we no deal with the devil, so racist move along. We’re beyond your gender
We’re beyond your skin
We’re beyond what you may see as you.
There is no agenda
That’s where we begin
Where the racist has no work to do.
We’re beyond religion
We’re beyond your prayers.
You can meditate and have a look
That’s beyond your heaven.
You can you can take it there.
We’re beyond the knowledge in your book
When it comes to the spirit we are colourless
When it comes to the sprit we are one.
At the spirit level we no deal with the devil, so racist move along.
When it comes to the spirit we are colourless
When it comes to the sprit we are one.
At the spirit level we no deal with the devil, so racist move along, move along.
Dis Poetry: Selected Poems & Lyrics was published by Bloodaxe Books on April 15 2025. It brings together all the poems from Benjamin’s three Bloodaxe collections, City Psalms (1992), Propa Propaganda (1996) and Too Black, Too Strong (2001), as well as some from The Dread Affair (1985), along with previously unpublished work and lyrics from various recordings