Zephaniah
A lot of good people seem to have died in the last few weeks. Today, I was saddened to learn of the death of Benjamin Zephaniah at the tender age of sixty five. It was a brain tumour that got him. I guess that most bloggers from other countries will not have heard of him but here in Great Britain, over decades, he had become something of a national treasure. Born into an immigrant West Indian family in the city of Birmingham, he left school without qualifications having being diagnosed as "dyslexic". Later, it was a meeting with a typewriter mixed with his growing fascination with the lyrics of reggae songs that woke up his poetic voice. He found a way to make his poetry sing to ordinary people and schoolkids. His topics often involved injustice and the multicultural experience but he could be funny and sweet too, enjoying wordplay, looking at nature and the quirkiness of human existence. He appeared in "Peaky Blinders" and was a lifelong vegan. He became flue...