Too Black, Too Strong

Too Black, Too Strong is Benjamin Zephaniah's latest collection from Bloodaxe, addressing the struggles of black Britain more forcefully than all his previous books. It includes poems written while working with Michael Mansfield QC and other Tooks barristers on the Stephen Lawrence case and other high profile political trials. Zephaniah is a poet who won't stay silent, who doesn't pull any punches, writing out of a sense of urgency and a commitment to social justice.

Table of Contents:
9 What Am I Going On About? 15 Bought And Sold 17 What If 18 Breakfast in East Timor 20 What Stephen Lawrence Has Taught Us 22 To Ricky Reel 24 To Michael Menser 25 Having a Word 26 Reminders 27 Appeal Dismissed 28 Chant of a Homesick Nigga 30 This Be The Worst 31 Time 32 The Woman Has to Die 33 Kill Them Before Ramadan 34 The Empire Comes Back 35 The Men From Jamaica Are Settling Down 41 I Neva Shot De Sheriff 45 Carnival Days 47 Naked 51 Adultery 52 Going Cheap 53 Christmas Has Been Shot 55 Two Dozen Babylon 56 Three Black Males 57 We People Too 61 Anti-Slavery Movements 62 Knowing Me 65 The Race Industry 66 Biko the Greatness 68 Derry Sunday 69 The One Minutes of Silence 72 The Drunk on Green Street 73 The Ride 74 To Do Wid Me 78 Nu Blue Suede Shoes 80 The Approved School of Reggae 82 Do Something Illegal 83 Translate 84 The London Breed 85 Heroes 86 The Big Bang

About the Author :
Best-known for his performance poetry with a political edge for adults - and his poetry with attitude for children - Benjamin Zephaniah has his own rap/reggae band and has made many recordings. He grew up in Jamaica and in Handsworth, Birmingham, where he was sent to an approved school for being uncontrollable, rebellious and 'a born failure', ending up in jail for burglary. After prison he turned from crime to music and poetry. In 1989 he was nominated for Oxford Professor of Poetry, and has since received honorary doctorates from several English universities, but famously refused to accept a nomination for an OBE in 2003. He was voted Britain's 3rd favourite poet of all time (after T.S. Eliot and John Donne) in a BBC poll in 2009. In 2011 he was poet-in-residence at Keats House in 2011, and then made a radical career change by taking up his first ever academic position as a chair in Creative Writing at Brunel University in West London. He has appeared in a number of television programmes, including Eastenders, The Bill, Live and Kicking, Blue Peter and Wise Up, and played Gower in a BBC Radio 3 production of Shakespeare's Pericles in 2005. He was the first person to record with the Wailers after the death of Bob Marley, in a musical tribute to Nelson Mandela, which Mandela heard while in prison on Robben Island. Their later meetings led to Zephaniah working with children in South African townships and hosting the President's Two Nations Concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1996. His first book of poems, Pen Rhythm, was produced in 1980 by a small East London publishing cooperative, Page One Books. His second collection, The Dread Affair, was published by Hutchinson's short-lived Arena imprint in 1985. He then published three collections with Bloodaxe, City Psalms (1992), Propa Propaganda (1996) and Too Black Too Strong (2001), the latter including poems written while working with Michael Mansfield QC and other Tooks barristers on the Stephen Lawrence case, followed by the DVD-book To Do Wid Me (2013) with a full-length feature film by Pamela Robertson-Pearce. His latest book is his autobiography, The Life and Rhymes and Benjamin Zephaniah (Simon & Schuster, 2018). His other titles include poetry books for children from Puffin/Penguin and novels for teenagers from Bloomsbury.