Benjamin Zephaniah by Lemn Sissay – Part 1

Posted on July 15, 2009 by rosiegold

Posted on behalf of Lemn Sissay by Rosie Goldsmith. On July 10th Lemn introduced London Literature Festival’s ‘Access All Areas’ event with Benjamin Zephaniah.

‘Wild Horses in the Foyer’ by Lemn Sisay

Other than unformed notes I hadn’t yet written the introduction to Benjamin Zephaniah for his appearance at Queen Elizabeth Hall. But the wild horses were gathering on the horizon.
In flight a sliver of cold steel has slipped into my neck. I arrive home un-rested after a five thousand mile overnight flight from South Africa. I unpacked and balanced the South African masks upon their plinths around our home and then cycled to Southbank Centre.
This is what I missed when away. I park the bike in the riverside rooms where the artist in residence are based and within seconds a camera crew and interviewer are bungling themselves through the door. I’d scheduled an interview at 3.15pm for a new initiative called LitUp Singapore.
I can hear the thunder of their gallop. My notes for the intro are rustling. The interview goes as well as interviews do. And between five and six pm I call in the horses and they leave a trail of sentences. I then print them. I print the Benjamin Zephaniah introduction.
At seven pm I meet Benjamin back stage who is sat comfortably with Rachel Holmes in the Green Room. By seven thirty-five Benjamin saunters on stage to rapturous applause. He smiles “next time I introduce a new girlfriend to my mum Lemn…Will you write the introduction?” he tells me. He’s happy. I’m proud and he delivers a blinding set. Great to watch a master at work.
I pop up to the artists’ hang out in the RFH where I meet Tom Priestley, the son of the late JB Priestley whose book ‘An English Journey’ had just had its relaunch in The Purcell Room. I imagine if JB Priestley were alive he would’ve met with Benjamin to say ‘hi’. Benjamin would have joked with Priestley about his pipe-smoking and Priestley would have made some joke about weed. They would have compared notes about their respective events. An English Journey indeed.
I am exhausted but I love it. At 11pm I get on my bike, switch on the lights and cycle off and over Waterloo bridge, round Aldwych, up Holborn, through Islington onwards, onwards to Dalston into Hackney and finally home.

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Benjamin Zephaniah by Lemn Sissay – Part 2

Posted on July 15, 2009 by rosiegold

Posted on behalf of Lemn Sissay by Rosie Goldsmith, with thanks to Dominqie Brewster for the photos.
On July 10th Lemn introduced London Literature Festival’s ‘Access All Areas’ event with Benjamin Zephaniah.

Benjamin Zephaniah – Freedom fighter – by Lemn Sissay

What a joyous night. Ladies and gentlemen my name is Lemn Sissay and I am Artist-in-Residence at Southbank Centre. It is part of a 21st century vision that artists should be at the heart of an arts centre. Part of that vibe is to Access All Areas, and bring artists here that have inspired me.
It doesn’t get better than this. It does not get better than this.
Many of you will know him as a novelist, many as a poet, many as a children’s author or as a world- reknowned recording artist. Most of you will know him as all these things. Whereas some enter one field of literature in each field entered by Zephaniah books bloom songs grow and poems rise around him. Soon enough whichever field he enters and furrows, becomes surrounded with people staring in awe at the natural beauty “us” – as Tony Harrison might say.
And of nature – Zephaniah the vegan man of meditation. Though you may rarely, if at all, see him referred to as a Doctor Benjamin Zephaniah, he has been bestowed with honorary doctorates from many universities (including Southbank University here), proud to associate themselves with him and acknowledge the writer; a man dedicated to the written word and the spoken word. Not bad for the boy who once slept with a gun beneath his pillow who one day woke up and said no more – there is more than this.
I first heard the term ‘think globally, act locally’ from Benjamin Zephaniah. We may love him as local but he is truly international. At one reading in some far-flung country a helicopter landed by his accommodation. The leader of that country wanted to see him for a chat. In India I was sat in a plush hotel and the background music that came through was Benjamin Zephaniah
In South Africa he helped free Mzwakhe Mbulis, imprisoned on trumped-up charges of robbery.
An exact quote from the letter he wrote to the then–president Nelson Mandela:
“you can judge a country by how it treats his poets.”
A short while later Nelson Mandela visited Mzwake with fresh fruit. And a short while later Mzwakhe was freed. Benjamin Zephaniah is legend in South Africa. He has boldly gone where no poet has gone before.
He has spoken the truth were others have not. Before this event tonight The Young Curators of Southbank Centre asked if he would come and see them perform. He came early to watch them…. What to say to introduce the man of the people, one of the most astounding writers of our time?
I ask the people.
I made a question upon my facebook status page: ‘What shall I say to introduce him. The suggestions poured out. It was just pure pure love…….From Dave Haslam the DJ from The famed Hacienda night club, from a teacher in Sussex… but there are two that I would like to quote. The first is from the television presenter from The One Show and radio broadcaster, Hardeep Singh Kholi:
‘Please tell him that we owe him a debt of gratitude for trail-blazing the way for the rest of us. And that we respect him….and that he has cute cheeks that are simply asking to be squeezed hard.’
Finally I am going to use the words left upon my facebook page by Les Rickford who introduced him with these self same words at Womad in 1989. First he says: ‘Please let him know he is well loved.’
Les Rickford introduced Benjamin with four lines. See if you can work out the rhyme and after hearing his name please applaud him.

‘His riddims tek you higher
His lyrics they inspire
so put your hands together
for Benjamin Zephaniah’

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Benjamin The Bard

Posted on July 13, 2009 by rosiegold

Fred D'Aguiar and son Nicholas

Fred D'Aguiar and son Nicholas

Posted on behalf of Fred D’Aguiar by Rosie Goldsmith

BODACIOUS BENJAMIN

I attended Benjamin’s reading with my 7 year-old, Nicholas who laughed at the rude bits and kept his eyes on the dance and bob and weave on Ben’s stage presence and personality. He kept a packed Queen Elizabeth Hall laughing and clapping and at the end roaring and stamping for an encore. Ben obliged with his signature poem about poetry after paying homage to the late Adrian Mitchell and quoting his pithy, ‘most people ignore most poetry, because, most poetry ignores most people.’ The 3-liner from Mitchell declares Ben’s poetics and lifelong success as a poet, a direct voice, a straightforward diction and syntax and a subject matter, outwardly political but inwardly tuned to the obsessions of daily living.

A surprising number of poems employ humour to tackle difficult subject matter such as police brutality, racism, and nationalism. His private politics and twin practice of veganism and martial arts for physical and spiritual well-being result in some very funny poems with a political edge to them.

Ben’s talk in between his poems do not simply set up the subjects he is about to chant but enhance them as well, adding new perspectives to his ‘global outlook’ as Lemn Sissay reminded us in his stirring introduction of the bard. I say, Bard, with utter seriousness since it is clear that Ben’s rock star reception at Queen Elizabeth is nothing short of poetry’s most astute attention to people so that people are in tune with it. My son said he would like to see Ben again and the moment he woke up wanted to U-Tube Ben for more chants and reggae rhythms.

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Benjamin Zephaniah – An Evening of ‘Cultural Intercourse’

Posted on July 11, 2009 by masternath

I must admit, I didn’t know what to expect from Benjamin Zephaniah’s performance at Queen Elizabeth Hall, so I attended with an open mind.

Before Zephaniah took to the stage, he was introduced by Leman Sissay. Eager to introduce Zephaniah, Sissay came onto the stage before his cue, much to the amusement of the audience. Sissay gave the most enthusiastic introduction I had ever encountered, grinning from ear to ear as he sang Zephaniah’s praises.

Then Benjamin Zephaniah took to the stage. Visually, Benjamin Zephaniah doesn’t strike you as a star… well not the type that adorns the pages of Heat magazine every week. He introduced himself using his full name – Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah. He joked that his name gets him ‘stopped at every airport.’ This was one of a few jokes Zephaniah used to not only introduce himself, but also to warm the audience up.

His first poem, ‘This is Me’ sent a shiver down the spine as he repeated ‘this is me’ like a chorus, which echoed as it bounced off the walls. Throughout his performances of his different poems, his inflection leaps between West Indian and his native Birmingham. Sometimes it was hard to comprehend what he was saying; as he was speaking so fast the brain struggled to keep up as his words ran into one another.

One thing that was not lacking from his performance was passion. This was shown through his animated performance. Whether he was poking fun at race relations in ‘The Men from Jamaica are Settling Down’ (based on the style of Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech), or commenting on some men’s flawed view of masculinity in ‘Man to Man’, Zephaniah’s every move and facial expression helps him to convey his point to the audience.

Speaking of the audience, for some reason I had the idea that I would be the youngest person there. This thought was destroyed as I had a look around in the auditorium. There was a nice mix of people, all ages (some quite a bit younger than myself), all enjoying the show.

An evening of ‘cultural intercourse’ indeed. (His words, not mine.)

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Where to? Success, that’s where.

Posted on July 10, 2009 by paulblezard

Billed as an eclectic line-up of poets, artists and musicians, I’d been looking forward to this show since first meeting two of its young curators Alex and Jayga at a pre-festival meeting.

The precept for it was a response to the concept of escape and its destinations and it drew inspiration from Benjamin ‘the bard’ Zephaniah, whose own show Where to? preceded.

What I did not expect was the superb fusion of spoken word, music, art, graphics and the extraordinary buzz that hit me as I walked into the Front Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall. I know it’s a real pain to be told how good something was after the event, when you’ve already missed it, so I’m sorry, but this show was everything that it could have been. Slick, sassy, soulful and with more heart and guts than Fergus Henderson’s superb, notoriously offal-centric restaurant, St. John.

It would be easy for a middle-aged, grey haired gipper like me to wail on about how talented the younger generation are and I won’t disrespect the perfomers by even dreaming of doing so, because actually age didn’t come into this exquisite, diverse gem of a show. This was all about performance and integrity and art and the artistry of all these elements.

So I’ll make a bet with you. If super-singer-songwriter Aruba Red doesn’t have the stellar career in music that she royally deserves; if Woe don’t get signed, become bigger than, oh I don’t know, Oasis… Blur… whoever’s pestering the music journalists at the moment, and win a Grammy; if artist Adele Morse doesn’t win a Turner prize; and if none of this happens within five years… then I’ll take you for lunch. All of you! Start counting the days my friends, start counting.

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