Benjamin's Britain
The 'Poetry Scene' in Britain
First published in a newspaper in Bosina. Sorry, can't remember which one!!
I am often asked about the poetry scene in Britain and I never quite know where to start, the truth is there are many poetry scenes in this green and pleasant land. I'm quite flexible with what I mean by the word scene, but I can do that, because I have poetic licence. Now let me give you an example of a well-established poetry scene.
There is a scene of poets (mainly men) who are very rarely seen in public, they very rarely (if ever) see each other, and the general public very rarely hear of them. They may seem rather lonely but their own importance keeps them company. They are highly educated and write solely for the purpose of showing their highly educated friends how educated they are. They write volumes because they have the time, and they believe that the world would be a terrible place if everyone had an interest in poetry, and even worse if everyone understood it. That's them.
I don't like judging or criticising any poets or their scenes, I think they're all good; I want them to be what they want to be. Poets come in all shapes and sizes, with all kinds of quirks and idiosyncrasies, which is why I keep saying that we are all braches of the same tree. But the scene of housebound poets is not my scene. What fascinates me is the 'performance poetry' scene where comedy, politics, love and anger sit side by side, and young things come to feed their minds before going out for a night of dancing. This is the poetry scene that I would like to bring to your attention. These poets do not simply believe in art for art's sake, they write with conviction, they have a purpose; they believe it is their duty to connect with their audience.
After Alan Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac fronted the Beat Poetry movement in the fifties and sixties, Britain replied with the Mersey Beat Poets, fronted by Rodger McGough, Brian Pattern, and the late Adrian Henri. Brian Pattern is still a prolific writer and performer, who has written some great poetry for children, but Rodger is the most visible of the two, he is constantly publishing books and reciting for the faithful. He has seen it all having been on the performance scene for over thirty years.
John Cooper Clarke (JCC) on the other hand first appeared on the scene in the late seventies, he was the first true Punk Poet, these were white working class poets who ranted about the hardships of live on Council Estates. JCC embellished his stories with his even stranger imagination. When JCC was doing his thing, Linton Kewsi Johnson (LKJ ) was emerging out of the reggae music scene, with people like me at his side. He was poetically charting the progress, or lack of it, of the black community. LKJ is easier to listen than he is to read, he speaks and performs with strong Jamaican accent and dialect, which he tries to capture on the page. We were all telling as it was, our communities had no voice, the politicians were not representing us, so we the poets played a crucial part in raising the concerns of our families and neighbours.
Around the same time a guy called John Heagly appeared on the scene. He was pure silly, in the most intelligent way. When he performed there was a boyish, questioning innocence in his eyes. I have seen him deliver poetry that has had the audience falling over with laughter, whilst he remained stony faced. I remember once listening to him perform for an hour and every poem was about his glasses, he somehow did this without being boring or repeating himself. It was then my duty to follow him, and all I did was spend an hour performing anti apartheid poems. John's poems can only be performed by John, or a very, very good actor playing John. There really is no one like him.
As the Asian community grew in confidence many Asian writers began appearing on our stages. Much of this writing was concerned with, migration, failed family expectations and identity. Although Moniza Alvi wrote more broadly about the human condition she also wrote about identity, but she did it in a very personal way. She asked the questions that we all ask and didn't limit herself to writing ‘struggle poems', or the kind of poetry that comes out of the difficulties of filling in the ethnicity question on a census form. Shamshad Khan also writes about identity, but she links identity and politics in a way that is relevant to a younger generation of Asian youth in Britain today. She is at the forefront of a movement of Moslem women who have to deal with the usual problems of an ethnic minority, and what we now call Islamaphobia. Shamshad comes from the city of Manchester where she is one the most active poets on the circuit.
These were the poets that I first started performing with, we wanted to give poetry a new lease of live, and bring music to it. The great thing about the performance scene is that it cuts out the people in-between, the middlemen, the publishers, the critics, and even the printers, leaving the poets to have a direct relationship with the audience. This allows for all sorts of voices, all the poet has to do is stand and deliver. Michael Rosen for example can get as silly as John Heagly or as serious as LKJ, but for many years he has also been a household name to listeners of BBC radio, and the kind of poet that can entertain children at a children's party. Still he takes his politics seriously, and I am convinced that he's been on every political demonstration that I've been on. Carol Ann Duffy probably wouldn't like being included on my list of great Britons, she doesn't like lists, she doesn't like league tables, and she doesn't want to be poet laureate.
In my view what I speak of is more than a scene, it is a continuation of the oral tradition. I believe that what we do is related to Beowulf or the work of Homer, we too want to challenge the mind and stir the blood. Tony Harrison does that for sure, I find him irresistible. Here we have a man of great ideas, a revolutionary and a scholar who moves with ease from classical literature to the everyday language of modern Yorkshire. His education has never 'gone to his head'; his themes really mean something to us all, which is why many of his poems have taken up many column inches in our national newspapers.
From ballads to lyric poetry, from comedic verse to Reggae, and from narrative poetry to Rap poetry, we do it live and direct. We may publish books, we may also put poetry on the Internet, but the most important thing for us is that we publish our works in people's hearts.
Benjamin Zephaniah
