The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah

by Benjamin Zephaniah

  He was a mess. His suit didn’t fit, his arm was in plaster and he looked as if he had come off worst in a fight and escaped from hospital to get to the gig. He said, ‘Hello, London’, and then he began to rant. I remembered having heard someone play a record back in Birmingham of a punk poet called Patrick Fitzgerald. Patrick was a white poet with Irish roots, living in east London, but he talked about living in the same conditions as we were living in, and his favourite music was reggae. But I’d only heard Patrick; John Cooper Clarke was the first punk poet I saw in the flesh. He fired off words so quickly but so effectively that it made his Mancunian drawl sound like music. Every punk and Rasta in that hall stopped to listen to him as he performed ‘(I Married a) Monster from Outer Space’. As I watched John, I thought, Yeah, that’s where I want to be. I want to be on stage with that freak.

  It was less than two weeks later that some of the same people who had been pogoing to the Ruts were fighting the extreme right-wing National Front (NF) on the streets. The Battle of Southall started when we marched against racists under the banner of the Anti Nazi League (ANL) on 23 April 1979. The racists had been intimidating the people of Southall and the police were doing nothing, so we were going to do something – we were going to show the National Front that we would defend the people of Southall. We wanted to show the police that if they wouldn’t take on the racists then we would.

  The police showed no mercy that day. Very few people who were there or who saw film footage of that demonstration doubted that they were doing the work of the National Front. That day the police killed Blair Peach, a gentle teacher and ANL member, and a martyr was created. On that day, too, the band Misty in Roots had their headquarters smashed up, a friend of mine was hit so hard with a police baton that she lost part of her memory, and someone took a photograph of me in that so-often-seen position: struggling as I was being arrested. Unfortunately I’ve never seen the photo and I’ve often wondered if someone still has it. Nose bleeding, my arms forced behind my back, I was bundled into a police van and beaten even more once inside it. And for good measure the police ripped out a handful of my dreadlocks as a trophy. The police at Thornhill Road, Birmingham, would have been proud.

  These were politically volatile times. I don’t think Mrs Thatcher actually said it, but you were either with her or against her, and I didn’t know anyone that was with her. There were of course lots of people who were with her, but they didn’t live in the areas where we lived, and if we ever strayed into real Tory territory we were soon made to feel unwelcome. When she came to power she sold a lifestyle to the aspirational working-class voter, but she was only ever addressing her vision to white people. We were the ones she’d mention in other conversations as swamping the country.

  She said what she was going to do and she got down and did it: she privatised everything she could; she clamped down on trade unions; she despised feminists and the politically organised working class, and she openly supported the racist apartheid regime in South Africa. Unsurprisingly she wasn’t doing much about the racist skinheads on the streets of Britain. We were left to defend ourselves, which was pretty hard when you also had openly racist police who would sometimes arrest us when we told them we had rights too. All this meant that the music, poetry and comedy of the time were highly politically charged.

  Different strands of youth culture were coming together to take a stand against oppression. The Midlands had always been a hotbed of musical talent but something special was beginning to happen there. They came out of Coventry and they really were the Specials. This band was a mixture of black and white kids who, in the midst of all the punk and reggae music around at the time, looked even further back, to ska. Ska had always been popular with non-racist skinheads, but the Specials injected new energy into it. I got to know them quite well, but I was closest to Neville Staple.

  Neville sang a little, but most of all he danced. He danced everywhere: on the lighting rig, on the speaker boxes, on the heads of audience members, and sometimes he even danced on stage. He was an energy ball, full of life. I was with Neville after one of their early London gigs. Their EP, Gangsters, had come out and they were doing okay. As we watched the punky stragglers leave the hall, Neville told me of their grand plan. They wanted the punks to tidy up – to throw away their bondage trousers and safety pins and get smart suits with razor-sharp creases, and pork-pie hats. He wanted to transform that subculture and start a new craze. I’d heard people say things like this before, so I didn’t take much notice, but less than six months later the two-tone craze was in full swing. Some punks kept their bondage gear, and not all Specials fans wore razor-sharp suits, but overall Neville got it right.

  20

  PUBLISHING THE UNPUBLISHABLE

  Any writer who has tried to get published will tell you it can be very difficult, and every published writer has a story (usually a long one) about how they got published. Mine was a little unusual, though thankfully it didn’t take too long. With encouragement from Sheila, I started to seriously look for a publisher. At first I tried the traditional way of sending the poems with a letter by post, but I much preferred taking the poems to the publisher myself. I didn’t know that wasn’t really the way to do things – I was just enthusiastic, and I knew my poems worked best when performed. With that in mind, I thought it best that I turned up with the poems, and if necessary I would perform them.

  Many publishers glanced at the poems and said no, and when I suggested that I perform them most of them looked at me as if I was mad. A couple of them said to my face, ‘Sorry, we don’t do black or Rastafarian poetry.’ I would try to tell them that my poetry was for everybody, not only blacks and Rastafarians. I told them I had white friends who liked them, but they weren’t having it. I think it’s too simplistic to say they were just being racist, however. Mainstream publishers in Britain knew nothing about black poetry, or dub poetry, or rap poetry back then.

  In Dalston, east London, there was a bookshop called Centreprise. It was also a community centre, a meeting place and a small publisher. When I heard about them I thought this must be the place for me. I arrived early one Monday morning and met a colourful woman who welcomed me in . . . and then rejected me. Many years later another friend, who is also called Benjamin, went there with his poems and saw the same woman. She turned him down too. He walked out of the bookshop to the bus stop, and as he was waiting for his bus home the woman came running after him and she said: ‘You know what. I said no to Benjamin Zephaniah about twenty years ago and I’ve regretted it ever since. Why don’t you come in and have a talk?’ I met her again in 2007 and she was very good-humoured about it. She said her colleagues had never let her live it down.

  Around this time I found another old friend from Birmingham called Raggs. He had come down a bit before me and was living in Leyton, east London. While we were all into hardcore reggae, he’d always been into funk – Parliament, George Clinton, Bootsy Collins. He made his own clothes (hence his nickname) and sported an Afro three times the size of his head. He had an extensive record collection and all he did, all day and all night, was dance to this funky stuff and design clothes. He was a great dancer. He had long, skinny legs that were like rubber. They would twist and turn like a rag doll’s legs, but he had great balance. He was totally in control when he looked out of control.

  Raggs understood the Dread and Rasta movement but he never jumped on that bandwagon simply to be fashionable. He never got into the hustling life; he was always an honest, hardworking funkateer. At first the funky thing wasn’t my bag but it began to grow on me, as Raggs’s zest for life was so infectious. He was earning a living by making clothes that appealed to the funk and soul crowd – flamboyant shirts and shiny fabrics. He’d run them up on a sewing machine in his home.

  I’d stay at Raggs’s house sometimes. I was working on my poetry and beginning to think about my first real public performances. On one of these occasions I was on a nearby street when someone suggested I visit another bookshop
where they also did publishing. I found the place – called The Whole Thing – in nearby Stratford. It was a bit like Centreprise but more holistically connected. Part of the premises was used as a vegetarian café, another part was a wholefood store, and the bookshop was as radical as they came. Along with the Morning Star, they sold every feminist, gay, Irish Republican and black publication going. It was what was called an ‘alternative bookshop’ – a term I’d not previously heard used in that way – and it was a workers’ co-operative.

  The staff was made up of the happiest, hippiest people I had ever seen. There I met a bearded man called Derek Smith. He was a thoughtful, humble man, but he had the kind of face that didn’t really do smiles. When I told him I was a poet, and I’d like to be published, I could just about see his lips move, as if to indicate a smile, then he told me I had come at the right time. They had recently formed a publishing co-op and received a grant. Their brief was to publish somebody who was unknown and represented a minority community. Gill Hay was another worker there. Tall, and the complete opposite of Derek, her eyes were always alight and she seemed to be forever smiling.

  They both read my poems and straight away told me they would like to publish me. But there was a catch. It was a co-operative, so it wasn’t just a case of me leaving my poems and then waiting for the book to arrive through the post. I also had to get involved with the publishing process. That suited me fine; after all, I was always trying to understand that side of things, so we had a deal. Over the next few weeks I helped with the layout of the book, and then the pages would arrive at the shop and we had to staple them together. I loved it.

  I had been in London almost two years when, in 1980, Pen Rhythm was published. It was a very small book, more of a booklet, really, and it was a slightly different version from the prototype I had made, but helping to put the book together was a great learning process through which I also met interesting people.

  These days I’m not that keen on self-publishing, as I think a writer always needs an editor, and a lot of self-published books are full of spelling mistakes and use terrible typefaces, but I always tell new writers, especially poets, to imagine their first collection and, if possible, to create a model of what it would look like. Not necessarily for others, but for themselves. You must think about the order of your poems, and your mock-up book must have a title, dedications and as much information as there would be in the real book. Then you should put it away and read it later. You will then notice changes you might want to make, and you can begin to imagine what it would be like in the hands of someone who doesn’t know you.

  I was told that Pen Rhythm was well received, but I didn’t know what that meant. I don’t know how many copies were sold, but it very quickly went to three editions. A few months after it was published, an independent filmmaker called Simon Heaven came to see me in the bookshop. He told me about a new TV station that was soon to go on air. It was going to make films about marginalised and minority communities, and it would give a voice to people like me. The station was to be Channel 4.

  Simon had won a commission from the station, and his brief was to make a series of documentaries about alternative poets. He wanted the first one to be about me. I said yes. I had a book out, people were talking about my poetry, and I thought it made sense to do a documentary, but I was very nervous. As far as I knew the police were still looking for me in Birmingham. It had been in the back of my mind that they might have found me after the publication of Pen Rhythm, but they didn’t, which convinced me that the police didn’t read poetry.

  It took about three weeks to make the documentary. The filming process was all new to me. I would say all the wrong things – things that were right for me but wrong for television. For example, in reply to a question about why people needed to fight, I began to talk about liberation movements in Africa, that felt they had no choice but to fight their oppressors. As I spoke, Simon nodded, as if to say, ‘Very good.’ But then I said, ‘The people of Africa must fight for freedom and equality, like the Catholics of Northern Ireland.’

  The filming stopped, the crew looked at each other, and Simon said, ‘Very good, Benjamin. Can we do it again and be a bit less specific, a little more general?’ That was the moment I realised how cautious the British media could be when talking about the government’s interference in Ireland. Thatcher didn’t call her war a war – not when it was at home; that was what foreigners and dark people did. The British establishment and their friends called it ‘the unrest’ or ‘The Troubles’.

  I wasn’t diplomatic, my poetry was raw and so was I, so that kind of thing would happen many times. I began to understand how much self-censorship there was in the British media, and how much the British people (especially the English) censored themselves. Still, the programme got made and was called Pen Rhythm Poet, and it was one of the first documentaries to be shown on the new channel – which had begun broadcasting in November 1982. The original idea was to screen it as part of a series about emerging talent, but by the time it was ready for transmission the book and my performance had raised my profile so much that Channel 4 decided the film should stand alone, and so it was shown in its own right.

  Looking back, it’s a very strange film. Many people say I don’t look much different from the way I look now, in my late fifties, but I actually sounded much older and more Jamaican when I was younger. My performance style was more static, and I tended to get on stage and blast poems out without really introducing myself or my work. I just wanted to blow people away with poetry; I wasn’t really interested in ‘stage craft’ or making friends. I would learn that in the coming years.

  21

  A BARD OF STRATFORD

  I left Kilburn and moved in with Raggs in Leyton. I was being called the Bard of Stratford, so I thought I should at least live in the area. Things were really changing. I had experience of chatting on sound system microphones, and I’d done a few performances in small community centres, but now I was doing gigs on bigger stages. I even did one accidentally. I went to watch a benefit event for the Troops Out (of Ireland) movement. The fighting in Northern Ireland was very hot at the time. I was watching the bands and, although I was passionate about justice for the Catholic minority, it was a pretty, dark-haired Irish girl who caught my attention.

  I whispered some stuff in her ear about how good I thought we’d look together, and how, if we got together, we could represent the struggles of the black and Irish peoples. Then, in order to show her I was really on her side, I gave her a close-up, personal, whispered recitation of a poem I’d written called ‘Troops Out’, and I thought I was in.

  She said she had plans for me and she wanted me, then ten minutes later I watched with a sense of shock as she took to the stage and said: ‘I’ve just met a really nice guy and he’s going to come up here and do a poem for us. Give him a round of applause!’

  I was stunned, but I had no choice, so I went straight up on stage and did it. It was only one poem but that was my first gig in front of an all-white audience. I know it wasn’t ‘my gig’ – it was only one poem after all – but there was something liberating about performing in a place where absolutely no one knew me.

  After my Troops Out debut, things moved quickly. I was soon to top the bill at an event organised by Gill and Derek from The Whole Thing. It was to take place in a room above the shop, but I needed a support poet. I didn’t have to look far. Raggs’s brother was known as ‘King’ and had been writing poetry as a hobby. He said he was happy to warm up for me. He was a real wheeler-dealer and had a look based on what you might think of as the classic pimp style – the way he walked, spectacular hats, a girl on each arm. He always talked with a very posh accent, which was put on, but he developed it.

  His real name was Alexander Gordon, but I thought that sounded like someone from a soap opera, and he agreed with me. So I looked at his name, moved a few letters around, took a few letters out, and came up with the name ‘Da Zanda’. He now sounded like a magician, but
he liked it, so I went and designed a poster. I wrote the words on the poster myself. It said:

  Come hear local poets in a revolutionary style. Featuring Benjamin Zephaniah and Da Zanda. All who have ears, let them hear: voices from the city, on Saturday 31st January 1981. 1 o’clock at The Whole Thing, 53 West Ham Lane, Stratford, east London.

  So that was my first real gig, with my own poster and my own audience. It had an immediate impact. I remember somebody stopping me in the street the next day saying, ‘You’re that poet. When are you doing another reading? Everyone’s talking about you.’

  I didn’t have another performance planned but I could feel them coming. Then Derek suggested I work with them in the shop or, to put it correctly, that I should fully join the cooperative and not just the publishing operation. So I did. I started working in the bookshop and café to earn some money on the side. They ran a housing co-operative there too, which was a vital and thriving alternative to the traditional rental market. Once I began to understand how co-ops worked, I got a group of people together and we started our own housing co-operative.

  Back then, before the days of the internet, and before everything became a corporate ‘revenue stream’, like-minded people still had ways of finding each other and spreading information. Most cities had their own alternative scene, and it often congregated around wholefood cafés that doubled up as bookshops and food stores. These places weren’t like Holland & Barrett – they would be alive with left-leaning activists hanging out, talking about philosophy and the Green movement and organising resistance. Radical ideas would circulate and there would be flyers about the Greenham Common protest and CND, and noticeboards where people would advertise events and look for others with whom to share their co-op or squat. It was the perfect environment for my message.