Dr Benjamin Zephaniah was born in 1958 and grew up in Jamaica and Birmingham. He is an international poet renowned for his performance poetry.  

Benjamin is a performance poet, which means he reads and acts his poetry on stage. Benjamin’s style of writing reflects his Jamaican English accent.  He spells words like ‘the’ in the same way he pronounces them, for example, ‘de’. Read Benjamin’s poem and then try the activities which follow.