Published Paper Details:

A performer-poet of Caribbean origin, living in England, Benjamin Zephaniah's (1958-2023) poetry aims to counterbalance the long-standing White supremacy that directly and/or indirectly jeopardizes the identity of the Black Britons. Widely regarded as one of the most distinct as well as controversial 'other' voices, he ventilates the experiences of racial discrimination and socio-cultural oppression that the Black and brown-skinned immigrants in Britain are susceptible to. But his poems do not simply throb with the tension and anguish of the marginalized but question the logic of domination. In his poems, by celebrating his ancestral Afro-Caribbean heritage, Zephaniah aims to pour a sense of resistance that would permit and encourage the 'coloured' people to feel proud of their difference. The present paper will discuss four poems of Zephaniah, like "We Refugees," "The Race Industry," "Neighbours," and "White Comedy," with a specific purpose to explore how the poet attempts to diminish the dominant ideology of Englishness/Whiteness with a view to articulating the suppressed voice of the Black immigrants. The poems to be discussed amply show that even words of compassion and empathy are not without self-congratulatory politics, satisfying ultimately the White ego. Zephaniah, therefore, always warns the readers of the unrecognizable operation of linguistic and cultural dominance that intends to hegemonize and control the oppressed. The present paper, hence, proposes to examine how the said poems delve into the biased socio-cultural matrix of England to reveal the 'reality' behind its mask of democracy and secularism. It will also focus on how Zephaniah, in these poems especially, proposes a politics of alterity, not of alienation, as a potential means to survive and sustain in the exclusively hierarchical English society.