Benjamin Zephaniah was a true renaissance man

An artist, a scholar, a teacher, an entertainer – Bonnie Greer explains how the late poet was many things to many people throughout the course of his extraordinary life

Zephaniah was a critical part of a great upsurge in Black arts, that part of it rooted in the urbanity of Great Britain (Getty Images)

Benjamin Zephaniah was that rare phenomenon: both hero and anti-hero.

He was the hero, first of all, of his own life.

Born in Birmingham, a son of the Caribbean and of England, he would have been written off before he was even born. This was a man thwarted by society in his early days – by racism, by his dyslexia, both of them capable of disabling him.