Benjamin Zephaniah

Dr Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah was born and raised in Birmingham. He cannot remember a time he was not creating poetry but this had nothing to do with school where poetry meant very little to him, in fact he had finished full time education at the age of thirteen. His poetry is strongly influenced by the music and poetry of Jamaica and what he calls "street politics". His first real public performance was in a church when he was ten years old, by the time he was fifteen he had developed a strong following in his home town of Handsworth where he had gained a reputation as a young poet who was capable of speaking on local and international issues.

Young writers have said that the accessibility of his work has inspired them to take up writing, many record sleeves bear witness to the fact that he has inspired many of the new generation of rappers, and of all the performance poets that emerged in the late seventies/eighties he is one of the few that is still going strong. In 1998 the University of North London awarded him an honorary doctorate in recognition of his work. Zephaniah believes that working with human rights groups, animal rights groups and other political organisations means that he will never lack subject matter, working in Asia South America and Africa has given his poetry an international outlook which in turn has made him understand his role as a poet and the nature of the cultural glue that binds us all together.

Benjamin Zephaniah is an author with an enormous breadth of appeal, equally popular with both adults and children.Most well-known for his performance poetry with a political edge for adults and ground-breaking performance poetry for children, Benjamin also has his own rap/reggae band, and has appeared on desert Island Discs. He is in constant demand internationally to perform his work: there are rumours that he is Nelson Mandela's favourite poet, and is the only Rastafarian poet to be short-listed for the Chairs of Poetry for both Oxford and Cambridge University.

Fact file

Name: Benjamin Zephaniah

Date of birth: 1958

Place of birth: Birmingham

Current Home: London

Similar Authors: Lemn Sissay