The power of grassroots poetry

 The poet Benjamin Zephaniah has died from a brain tumour, diagnosed only eight weeks before his death. He was 65.

As always when a well-known person dies unexpectedly, I was quite taken aback by this news. I don't as a rule glorify celebrities (as I've documented in this blog, I think celebrity culture is extremely toxic) and I will not be glorifying Benjamin Zephaniah either - I did not know him, I don't know what he was like as a human being, and I don't think it's my place as a complete stranger to weigh in on the grief experienced by those who he was close to.

However, I don't think it's celebrity glorification to say that I have the utmost respect for Benjamin Zephaniah's work, and I think we could all learn a bit from what he contributed to this world. He struggled at school due to dyslexia, which eventually led to him being expelled at the age of 13, unable to read or write, which makes it all the more awesome that he eventually became known for being one of the world's most inspirational writers (my partner is a YA novelist and also struggled a lot with reading and writing whilst at school, so that story has a bit of a personal connection with me).

It seems to be around that time that he started writing poetry. I personally love poetry and I think poetry is something that is taught in a really harmful way in schools actually. It's quite rare to meet a young person nowadays, particularly a young person from a working-class background, who says that they love poetry, and this is because of the way it's taught. Poetry is generally written to be performed; it's not meant to be photocopied out and read silently, with every metaphor analysed for all it's worth. Worse than that, I feel as though poetry has come to be seen as a particularly highbrow outlet, a pursuit of the upper-middle class, something that is not designed for the masses in the same way as films, television or music. I don't believe this is true or fair, and in fact I believe that poetry is one of the most grassroots forms of media out there, something that really has the potential to make a difference.

As always, the British establishment approached Benjamin with an 'If you can't beat them, join them' mentality - or possibly the other way around: 'If you can't beat them, invite them to join you and neutralise them that way'. This is a technique that has been used on many outsiders who have managed to achieve support from the sidelines. They will crush you if they can, but sometimes, if you have great support from your own local community as Benjamin Zephaniah did, this won't work. If it doesn't work, their next trick is to go in the opposite direction - to promote the person like hell, make them an absolute national treasure, and by doing so tempt them with promises of milk and honey. I believe this has worked on many, many people; I wouldn't like to speculate on who, but I think there are quite a lot of establishment figures who perhaps in their early days may have had something interesting to say. But their message has become diluted. They've been invited to the big parties, been able to shake hands with important people, and have forgotten where they from and who it is they're doing this for.

But it didn't work on Benjamin Zephaniah. In 2003 (the same year as the invasion of Iraq), then Prime Minister Tony Blair recommended him for an OBE, which Benjamin publicly rejected with these words, which I think we could all learn something from:

'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. It is because of this concept of empire that my British education led me to believe that the history of black people started with slavery and that we were born slaves, and should therefore be grateful that we were given freedom by our caring white masters. It is because of this idea of empire that black people like myself don't even know our true names or our true historical culture. I am not one of those who are obsessed with their roots, and I'm certainly not suffering from a crisis of identity; my obsession is about the future and the political rights of all people.' (He wrote a full article about it here, if you'd like to read his opinions on this matter in more detail.)

There are so many things I respect about this, but the one that really sticks out to me is the fact that he was offered this OBE 'in strict confidence'. Clearly, someone who rejects an offer like this isn't meant to talk about it. But realistically, why shouldn't they? Why shouldn't we express publicly our dissatisfaction with the British honours system, and more importantly the outrage one may feel at said honours system trying to embrace one despite the fact that one objects to everything it represents? I feel that in speaking out, Benjamin highlighted some things that people weren't aware of, and brought this to public consciousness. I remember a few years ago, when the poet Carol Ann Duffy's Laureateship was coming to an end, my family was speculating on who would replace her, and my father said, 'It's bound to be Benjamin Zephaniah, isn't it?' I responded, 'He'd never accept it.' And this is something I just knew. I wouldn't say that I've ever been the biggest fan of Benjamin or his work (not because I dislike it, just because I've never got around to reading very much of it with everything else I want to read - although I definitely intend to remedy that in the future) but still, in spite of not knowing a great deal about him at that point, I knew enough to know that he would never agree to be Poet Laureate. I just knew, because it's common knowledge, and Benjamin made it common knowledge just by speaking out.

Benjamin Zephaniah cared about all the same things that I do. He was a vegan from the age of 13, and in favour of the promotion of disappearing British languages such as Welsh and Cornish. He was a supporter of people of colour, LGBTQ+ people, the working class, the dispossessed, the oppressed, the underrepresented... and, right now particularly importantly, he was a supporter of Palestinians.

I haven't updated my blog quite so much recently, and one reason for this is that Palestine is all I want to talk about, and I find I don't actually have the words. The last few months have seen the most horrific attack on any oppressed people that has occurred in my lifetime. The reports on what has been happening have caused me quite significant levels of distress, to a point that I haven't really got to before. It fills me with great fear to see what human beings are capable of - not just on an individual level, but on a systemic level. There's a big part of me that wants to turn it off and pretend it's not happening - but I don't think I can ethically do that. Being able to look away is a privilege, and were I to do that it wouldn't really help, because I'd know that it's still happening and that I can't stop it. At least if I continue to observe, I may be able to help, in some small way - be that by writing, or arguing with someone about it. I did have one conversation with someone the other day, not even a particular Israel supporter, who said, 'How could Hamas be that stupid?' And I responded that they weren't stupid. All of this was intended. I believe that for Hamas, Palestinians are collateral damage in the aim of humiliating Israel; but for Likud, Palestinians are not collateral damage. They are the target. What we are seeing in the Gaza Strip is nothing short of genocide, and our politicians are refusing to acknowledge that.

But the most horrific thing about all of this is that I feel guilty for even feeling distressed. I feel like my own feelings are pretty minuscule in the grand scheme of things, bearing in mind the experiences of the thousands of people in Palestine. Those who are lucky enough to still be alive, if 'lucky' is the right word, will live with this trauma for the rest of their lives, and I find that I can't even express my own feelings without feeling that I'm making it about me, rather than about them. Essentially, the only word to describe my feelings about this is 'overwhelmed'. I just really hope the international community is waking up and is able to see all of this for what it is.

But perhaps this is the ultimate power of grassroots poetry - the ability it has to say something that you were struggling to quite find the words for. For this reason I'm going to conclude this blog with one of Benjamin's poems that really made me feel something - one that at this time of year feels extremely important and poignant.

Christmas has been shot

Christmas has been shot away this year,
There are too many choppers chopping up the sky
Too many bullets in the air for good tidings,
There will be no Christ and no mass
And darkness has fallen upon the land.
No one shall make a joyful noise unto the Lord
Or serve the Lord with gladness,
No one shall come before his presence with singing,
And Palestinian Christians who want to declare
The name of the Lord in Jerusalem
Or glorify the boy in Bethlehem
Have been told to piss off to Jordan,
Syria or Iraq.

All the saints have been told
To wait for the resumption of peace talks
And the angels of the Lord have been told
To wait until the Americans are ready
Because Zion means something else now,
And yes it was written that the truth shall flow
From the mouths of babe and suckling,
But babes and sucklings beware
The soldiers have orders to kill,
And the spirit of King Herod is alive.
They’re not doing Christmas this year,
It has been shot away
‘And anyway
Christ is no messiah,’ said the soldier
‘This is our Promised Land.’

What we see over Bethlehem this year
Is a spineless, skeleton of a Christmas,
A Christmas that has been occupied, strangled
And driven to tears, crying tear gas and burning,
It’s a Christmas that has no songs or sermons
Except the song of the bomber;
As loud as dying
As quiet as death.
Welcome to the birthplace of his holiness
Welcome to the humiliation of the natives,
Here even flowers are shot down
If they fly the local flag,
You will not hear the bells of Christmas
And you will not hear the women sing.
‘And let me tell you something else,’ said the soldier
‘No virgin gave birth here – we wouldn’t allow it.’

Sorry gentiles
It looks like it’s gonna be a cold Christmas,
Ain’t no spirit of the Lord moving over the manger
Just a nuclear power
Flying in from Tel Aviv via Washington DC.
The power of the almighty has come for sure
To suck Christmas dry
And to blow Christmas away.
There will be no mercy
And no rejoicing
And no worshipping any little Black Palestinian boy,
And no crosses
And no three wise women or men
And no Arab shepherds,
Because Christmas has been done in
Christmas is coughing and choking
Christmas has been hit by bullets from the west,
So if you want to do Christmas this year
Take a bible,
Sit indoors,
And do your own thing,
Just don’t do it in Bethlehem.

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