It has the “mother of all parliaments”, its inhabitants enjoy “free speech” and the right to vote in open elections and it is so confident that it doesn’t need a written constitution. It is a nation of shopkeepers, aristocrats, farmers and animal lovers, all at the same time. I have also included poems that started life as commissions: ‘What If’ was originally commissioned by BBC Television, ‘What Stephen Lawrence Has Taught Us’ by Independent Television News (ITN) for Channel Four News (and afterwards printed in The Guardian), ‘Carnival Days’ by The Post Office, ‘The London Breed’ by The Museum of London, and ‘Heroes’ is one of three poems commissioned by Sheffield City Council and carved into buildings in Rockingham Street in the centre of Sheffield.Īlthough you can find me on various Internet sites, there is one genuine Benjamin Zephaniah site: WHAT AM I GOING ON ABOUT?īritain is a wonderful place. With one or two exceptions the poems in this collection were written between the years 19. The administrators, the barristers, the clients, all helped to make my time with them the best term I have ever served.
I would like to thank The Poetry Society for thinking up such an interesting residency and for putting up with my unorthodox approach to it, and everyone at Tooks who made me so welcome and managed to endure a year of me following them to court, questioning them, and loitering with intent. Other poems from that residency not included here were written for performance only. Poems in this book written during that period and inspired by the residency are: ‘To Ricky Reel’, ‘To Michael Menser’, ‘Having a Word’, ‘Appeal Dismissed’, ‘Chant of a Homesick Nigga’, ‘I Neva Shot De Sheriff’, ‘Adultery’, ‘Two Dozen Babylon’, ‘Knowing Me’, ‘Derry Sunday’, and ‘The One Minutes Of Silence’.
The residency was sponsored by The Poetry Society and although it was officially scheduled to run for 48 days I lost count of the days but spread my time there over a year. In February 2000 I started a residency at Tooks barristers’ chambers in London.
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