Portrait

last evening we headed down to the cheers pub to watch internationally popular, critically acclaimed british/jamaincan performance poet benjamin zephaniah.

charlotte tells me his real name is obidiah iqbal, and also that he is really 48 years old. this is shocking as i placed him at no more than about 35 years of age, and kept laughing everytime he would make a reference and then say ‘for those of you that aren’t as old as i am’ because i thought he was being cheeky.

other than this, it was a really energy packed and inspiring experience to be in his presence. his poetry itself is really well written, witty and youthful, making it interesting and light, even though he often speaks about subjects that are deeply rooted on politics and other such dark things. this, is apparently, the whole point; to make poetry an accesible and enjoyable experience, and not esoteric or severe. he himself said ‘i started writing poetry because i didn’t like poetry’.

between each poem, he would talk for awhile, familiar and comfortable with his audience, clearly the characteristics of someone who is used to performing in front of much larger crowds. the majority of last evening’s audience were british themselves, and this perhaps helped zephaniah feel more at home, since he constantly kept apoligizing for some very british references or jokes (which really weren’t that hard to get at all).

the best thing about him for me, besides the truly enlightening poetry or the wonderfully upbeat and rhythmic delivery of it, was his sense of humour. he approached many serious issues with a tongue-in-cheek swagger that made everyone roar. his extremely straightforward left-wing wit gave him the ability to laugh at things, instead of wallow in them, and showed the audience a way to look at the world around in optimism instead of despair.

the best poem of the evening for me was one titled ‘what’s that gotta do with me?’ and was about the people that dwell amongst us all, that are just content to live in a bubble so long as it’s good to them. i am regularly infuriated, particualrly with people my age, who just don’t seem to know, or care, or want to know what’s going on around them. it seems so simple to point fingers and say ‘oh, it’s their war’ ‘it’s their problem’ and easily detach oneself in order to live a life that doesn’t involve you in the mess. what we fail to see is that its most often everyone’s mess. global warming, for instance, is everyone’s mess, and it’s going to take everyone’s involvement to fix it.

i urge everyone that didn’t see it last evening to go and watch him at 5.30 pm today at the british council, and be inspired to use art to change the way people think, because that’s truly what a man like him has the power to do.