A Story of Poetry and Song -- Peter Leyland

 A Story of Poetry and Song

 

I recently accompanied my wife, Sue, to Sherington, a local village where a Christmas Market was in full swing. She was part of a choir and they were due to sing a variety of carols. The market was taking place in the grounds of a pub. I bought a drink, took up position and began to listen.

 

As the singing proceeded, I stood half-shrouded by cream-coloured tents and I helped myself to the free food on offer – sausages, roast potatoes, chicken pieces and the most marvellous pork crackling - while joining in with the carols. It didn’t take me long to realise that most people were passers-by, making their way backwards and forwards to the market and dropping coins into the ready bucket proffered by Santa Claus. I noticed, however, that the charity the choir was supporting was Brain Cancer Research and my thoughts turned to the poet, Benjamin Zephaniah, and his recent and sudden death from a brain tumour. I mentally reviewed what I had known about his life and work.

 

He was born in the Hockley area of Birmingham, one of eight children of a distant and violent father. Growing up he spent time in borstal and in prison. Poetry and Rastafarianism, however, were transformative for him and after youthful forays into spoken word poetry, he travelled to London and became part of the punk reggae and alternative comedy scene. He read his poetry in the breaks between gigs, something that reminded me of my own experiments with spoken word poetry in a pub in Bedford in the 80s where I did the same.

 

I first saw Benjamin reading his poems at The Hay-on-Wye Literary Festival in 1989. He was performing on a stage accompanied by Levi Tafari, a dub poet from Liverpool. I had bought his book, The Dread Affair, from one of the many second-hand book shops which abound in Hay and I was hyped-up to hear him read. It was a significant time for me. I had just been diagnosed with moderately severe hearing loss and was trying out a new pair of hearing-aids prescribed by the NHS.

 

I was able to hear Benjamin Zephaniah and Levi Tafari though, as they worked through their performance. Benjamin read some of his poems like Dis policeman keeps on kicking me to death and then moved with Levi onto a performance of Duboetry accompanied by guitar and drums. It was mesmerising. I was sitting next to a girl in a green dress and we were smiling and looking at each other. When the performers invited the audience up onto the stage to dance, we moved together towards the steps. Soon a large proportion of the audience were onstage dancing to the rhythms of their lives.

 

I next saw Benjamin Zephaniah in 1997, again at The Hay Festival. By then I was married to Sue, the girl with the green dress having vanished into the mists of time. With Sue I watched my second performance from Benjamin. By now he had become an established member of the performance poetry scene, although never one of The Establishment. In addition to a number of poetry collections like Inna Liverpool, he had published novels for adults and teenagers, and books of poems for children. One of my WEA students in a poetry class had brought his poem I LUV ME MUDDER to read out aloud and it had gone down a storm.

 

My hearing too had improved through the use of the hearing-aids, something I had thought I would never get used to. Children’s voices were always going to be difficult, but I had moved away from that phase of my life and become a teacher of adults who were much more forgiving of the many missed responses. I recall now with some empathy the struggles of Mr Rayner, a colleague from my first ever teaching job at Clark’s College in the 70s. He had managed to hear with a contraption of batteries and wires held in the top pocket of his tweed jacket which whistled and crackled as he moved. I have Benjamin Zephaniah to thank for the opportunity in 1989 to forget about self and the problems of not being able to hear and to dance away from those concerns. 

Today, the 29th December, I read in my newspaper a notice about his funeral: “Today is Prof Benjamin Zephaniah’s funeral day. We know a lot of people want to show respect to him but cannot join his funeral.” The notice goes on to say that as he does not like cut flowers and it recommends that we plant something like flowers, trees or any plants in his memory. I can do this too. In the new year I will be singing in the choir, having been invited to do so by Lucy, the leader. She liked my contribution to the Christmas Market singing in support of Brain Cancer Research in amongst the tents, the plates of food, and the hovering Father Christmas - and they always need more men.  A Happy New Year to everyone.

 

From my bookshelf:

 

The Dread Affair (1985) by Benjamin Zephaniah with illustrations by Ahmet Ahmet (Arena)

 

Duboetry (1987) by Levi Tafari (Merseyside Minibook Series No 31)

Face (1999) by Benjamin Zephaniah (Bloomsbury)

 

Wicked World (2000) by Benjamin Zephaniah (Puffin Books)

 

Too Black, Too Strong (2001) by Benjamin Zephaniah (Bloodaxe Books)