Poets Bradley Taylor (who has been working closely with us promoting the poetry competition) and Zakariye (our external judge representing the poetry community) ran a joint Zephaniah Forest Writing Workshop, on 30th October, at Cherry Reds’ in Birmingham City Centre.

It was a truly wonderful session, with one attendee coming from Manchester, as well as a young boy who blew everyone away with the poem he had just written from the prompt session – the entire room was speechless!

The group discussed various writing techniques that Benjamin Zephaniah uses, especially focusing on speech elements and repetition, creating mantras and memorable wording that lingers. The creative writers wrote their own poems based on these features, and another attendee read their poetry aloud to people for the very first time.

A huge thanks to Bradley and Zakariye for running this incredible workshop, and we look forward to reading the submissions that can be sent to us here. Competition deadline: Midnight, 1st December 2024.

Here is a poem submitted to Trees Please, Poetry Please? by Alex Johl, who is a part of the University of Birmingham’s Race Equality Network, and an admirer of Benjamin Zephaniah:

Ordained by God? I’m chosen by the People.
King of the Brummies.
Weighed down by your crown. I hold my head free.
Chest out, shoulders back.
Defiant. Disruptor. Dreadlocked meditator.
They can take the knee. I’ll stand.
Metal on the shoulder and chest won’t keep me in line.
Silence me?
I’ll be louder than ever.
Watch this.