Poetry Friday: Talking Turkeys
The last time I wrote a Poetry Friday post, I featured a book for young adults by Dennis Lee called SoCool. While I was in the UK this spring, I found another great book of poetry for teenagers called Talking Turkeys by Benjamin Zephaniah. Zephaniah is a rap poet. His poems are a wonderful zany treat of language served up colorful, tasty, and rich. In “Vegan Delight,” you can really hear the sound of the words in a multicultural stew of rhyme:
Ackees, chappatties
Dumplins an nan
Channa an rotis
Onion uttapam
To give you a ‘flavor’ of this rap poet’s performance, you can see him recite the title poem of this book on video. Many of Zephaniah’s poems have a satirical, slightly polemical, edge to them but not without being entirely entertaining at the same time. Textually, on the page, the poems sing and laugh the same way they are read aloud, utilizing funky fonts and pictures to accompany the lines. There are some wonderful examples here of concrete poetry at its most accessible.
I have to say my favorite poem of all was “Who’s Who” with its wonderful ending stanza “I used to think poets/Were boring,/Until I became one of them.” Zephaniah is definitely one poet that is NOT boring, and as such is the perfect poet to introduce to teenagers. My son giggled and snickered through “Talking Turkeys,” enjoying its humorous rhyme. If the young adults in your household think poetry is the stuff and nonsense of boredom, give them a little taste of Zephaniah and they’ll be sure to change their minds.
This week’s Poetry Friday host is Sara Holmes at Read, Write, Believe.
June 5th, 2009 at 10:35 am
It sounds great! I’m going to look for it tomorrow at the library…
June 5th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Ooh. Totally fun to let those words bounce around in my mouth. Thanks for the introduction to a poet new to me!
June 9th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
This really sounds like a fabulous find! Too bad we can’t find a copy here, is the US…
March 3rd, 2011 at 3:50 am
POGUS CAESAR LAUNCHES SPARKBROOK PRIDE
Birmingham-based photographer Pogus Caesar has a new book coming out, specially commissioned by Be Birmingham and published by Punch and OOM Gallery Archive.
‘Sparkbrook Pride’ consists of 70 black-and-white photos of residents of Sparkbrook, Birmingham – where Pogus grew up – all taken with his trademark Canon Sureshot camera.
The book also has a foreword written by Benjamin Zephaniah and an introduction by Paris-based photographer Nigel Dickinson. In the foreword Zephaniah says “I love the ‘rawness’ of these photos, they have a sense of place, yet nothing is staged, and the only information Pogus gives us about those featured is how they define themselves, nothing more. We need no more. So people – it is down to us to piece together the rest of this multicultural puzzle”.
Last Autumn Pogus visited Sparkbrook several times, and the striking images in ‘Sparkbrook Pride’ are the result. Documenting the diverse individuals who live and work in the area, the book features both the long-standing residents from the West Indies, Ireland, India and Pakistan and the more recent additions to the community from Somalia, Sudan, Malawi and Afghanistan, celebrating the rich cultural mix that defines the area.
Be Birmingham, in association with Punch and OOM Gallery Archive, will launch Sparkbrook Pride in Spring 2011.
Book details. Paperback, perfect bound, 160 pages, 70 black and white photographs, 11.6 x 8.2 x 0.8 inches. ISBN: 978-0-9566741-1-1
http://areamagazine.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/pogus-caesar-sparkbrook-pride/
March 10th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
well done for this book- both guys from birmingham.