Artist on artist: Raymond Antrobus on the irreplaceable Benjamin Zephaniah

Hackney’s Raymond Antrobus is a poet, educator and writer who will be no stranger to Southbank Centre audiences.

Antrobus began performing poetry in 2007 and soon became a regular on London’s spoken word circuit, performing at Out-Spoken, Bang! Said the Gun, and Deptford’s Chill Pill, which he co-ran. In 2018 he published his debut collection The Perseverance, which was named both the Guardian and Sunday Times Poetry Book of the Year and earned Antrobus the Ted Hughes Award and the Rathbones Folio Prize. He has published three further collections, recorded two spoken word albums with Dame Evelyn Glennie (Aloud and Another Noise), and written his first non-fiction book, The Quiet Ear, which was launched here in our Purcell Room, last year.

A constant companion in Antrobus’ poetry journey – as he’ll explain in this feature – has been Benjamin Zephaniah. Born in Handsworth, Birmingham to Caribbean parents, Zephaniah began performing poetry as a teenager. In 1979, age 21, he moved to South London and found a space for his poetry among the vibrant politically-charged post-punk scene. He published his first collection, Pen Rhythm, in 1980, and his first dub poetry album, Rasta, in 1982.

Zephaniah went on to publish 14 further poetry collections and six more dub albums, as well as multiple novels, children’s books and plays and in 2011 he took up the post of Professor of Poetry and Creative Writing at Brunel University. To several generations his was a familiar and welcome voice and face across radio and television, from his Peel Session performances in the early 1980s to a recurring role in Peaky Blinders. Testament to his broad appeal Zephaniah’s untimely death brought tributes from institutions as far removed as BBC’s Question Time on which he was a regular panelist, and Aston Villa football club of which he was a lifelong supporter.

Zephaniah’s legacy is being carried on by his wife, Qian, who is establishing the Benjamin Zephaniah Foundation to continue inspiring people to love what he loved. In Qian’s words, ‘Benjamin would have loved knowing someone was still out there talking about poetry, justice, nature and a proper connection with people’. This summer, we host our own celebration of Zephaniah’s life and work as part of 2026’s Poetry International, ahead of which Antrobus kindly agreed to talk about his own very personal relationship with the poet, performer and playwright.

I was really young when I first encountered Benjamin Zephaniah. I was about six-years-old, with my parents at an anti-apartheid protest at Trafalgar Square, and he was on stage performing a dub poem called ‘Overstanding’ through a megaphone. I was on my dad’s shoulders, and I remember him bouncing and everyone around us having such a good time, despite the seriousness of the wider event.

He was a very visible person throughout my childhood. After that protest I found him among my dad’s tapes and records, on the cover of his dub album, with the long dreads and an open shirt, looking like a don. And I had an English teacher who played me Benjamin’s work in a lesson, and I remember thinking ‘oh there he is again’. She knew I was into poetry, she knew my dad was of Jamaican heritage, and she happened to know a bit about Jamaican poets, so she asked me to recite one of his poems in class; I did ‘Overstanding’, even putting on the patois.

I remember lying in bed at 12 years old, and reading Benjamin’s YA novel Face from cover to cover. I didn’t want to stop. I was so moved by it, because having just begun my first year in deaf school, I really identified with the protagonist. It’s a story of a young man who suffers facial injuries, of how they try to hide it and how they’re shamed by other people at their school. And though it’s about a physical difference, it really resonated with how I felt about being seen with hearing aids – what we now call internalised ableism, where you’re struggling to look in the mirror and recognise your value.

He felt safe, he felt like a voice I could trust, and someone I could enjoy. Because, even at age 12, I already had these other associations with him, with his poetry and his music. And the fact he was someone my dad resonated with too. Then on my 15th birthday my mum bought me a couple of his collections, Proper Propaganda and Too Black, Too Strong and reading those really moved and inspired me to create my own stuff.

I’d bump into Benjamin at different poetry events, but I was always too starstruck to speak to him like a normal person. For a long time my communication with him was channeled through the writer Hannah Lowe, who we both knew. She would let me in on their latest conversation, about poetry, books or other stuff that was going on, and I’d give a comment. Then next time I saw Hannah she’d say ‘Oh, I told Benjamin what you said and he said this’. So we had a kind of staggered triptych of conversation going on.

Even as I got to know more about him, about his personal life, there would still be things that surprised me. Like how much he loved cars. He collected classic cars, and I remember initially thinking that’s not very in keeping with this vegan, Rastaman, but ultimately I love that about him. I found it endearing and interesting, his multitude of personality and character.

What was unique about Benjamin is that he managed to speak to me in almost every era of my life. From that first encounter as a young child, through adolescence and my teenage years, to him actually becoming a real person, and a real presence to me as an adult. I won’t ever have that with anyone else; you can’t replicate that.

One of the most meaningful conversations I had with him was when I was offered an MBE. Benjamin was the first person I thought of because he was a hero for turning down an OBE. He was all about people power and Rasta against the empire, so it would be impossible for him to wear that ‘honour’ with any meaning. But he recognised, as Lemn Sissay showed with his honour, that the thing it can do is get you into rooms you wouldn’t otherwise be in. For Benjamin that wasn’t anything that he couldn’t do himself, but for me it enabled me to progress my campaign work for deaf education. So knowing Benjamin wouldn’t completely write me off for accepting an MBE as long as I had intention, as long as I had something I could do with it, that was comforting. That was the last proper interaction I had with him.

In terms of poetry I think Benjamin Zephaniah truly is the pinnacle. The poetry world is very small, it’s grounded and accessible, it’s a different kind of reality to being an icon in any other sphere. But there have been moments where poets bridged that gap towards rock star like status – Pablo Neruda coming to London and selling out The Roundhouse or Allen Ginsberg reading ‘Howl’ with Adrian Mitchell and Michael Horovitz – and I think Benjamin really did enjoy that kind of star status. I don’t think any other poets can be higher up the cultural mountain than he is.

He had incredible stage presence, an incredible aura, and that went a long way in delivering his message. I’ve often taught his work at performance workshops for that reason. And I’ve shared videos of Benjamin performing to expand the association people have when I use the ‘p word’. There are moments in teaching when I try not to use the word ‘poetry’, because instead of building people up it often shuts them down. But seeing Benjamin perform, or listening to one of his dub poems, is the perfect way to instantly trouble some of the stiff, dead examples the word ‘poetry’ can evoke.

I wish I’d seen Benjamin at one of his early 1980s gigs. When it was just him, a microphone, and these conscious lyrics being delivered, eyes closed. I’ve seen some footage – there’s a really gritty documentary he did at the time for Channel 4 that follows him around Brixton – but it would’ve been incredible to be in the room. And though in his later career, as an elder, he could get away with more in terms of his messaging, there was something that felt particularly charged about those early readings.