Stephen Lawrence, “What Stephen Lawrence has Taught Us”
On April 22, 1993, a black teenager was killed in London waiting for a bus in what was determined to be a racially motivated act of violence. The poem begins by asserting that the killers are known and have been parading around in their white supremacy as with the cocksure strut of Mussolini jutting out his jaw. The narrative proceeds to unfurl the lessons learned by the incident: black people cannot take any action, no matter how mundane, for granted. Every place and every action puts a potential target on their backs.
Joy Gardner, “The Death of Joy Gardner”
Mere months after the attack on Stephen Lawrence, a Jamaican woman attending school in London died in police custody following a raid on her home. Though she had entered the country legally, she was targeted for deportation because she had stayed beyond the term of her six-month visa. The horrific details of the experience are delineated in the opening lines of the poem:
“They put a leather belt around her
13 feet of tape and bound her
Handcuffs to secure her
And only God knows what else”
Steven, “Vegan Steven”
Unlike the above poems, “Vegan Steven” is short and comically presented as a limerick. It simply tells of a young man named Steven and his decision to never kill without reason. He eats no cheese, he eats meat and he hates the arrival of fox hunting season.
Benjamin Zephaniah, “It’s Work”
Although not directly identifying himself by name, this poem has all the hallmarks of a confessional autobiographical verse. The poet is reflecting upon all the things he dreamed of doing for a living and all the jobs he might be doing had things gone differently. He reckons on the possibility of having become build or farmer, but rejects outright even the possibility of ever having becoming a barber or soldier. Everything leads to ultimate confession of this confessional work: writing and reciting poems is what he’ll do until he is forced to get a “proper job.”
