The Best Poet's Name
William Wordsworth and Walt Whitman have alliterative names
For Norman Nicholson and Stevie Smith you may say the same
Sassoon with his Siegfried and Porter with his Peter
Were destined to have mastery of rhythm, form and meter
Marvell at the metaphysical, let Pope raise you higher
But the best poet’s name is Benjamin Zephaniah
Some poets’ names onomatopoeically enthral
Muldoon is a wave beat off the coast of Donegal
Heaney has a sway of bog and deep earthy dark
There is a staccato peacock strut to John Cooper Clarke
Robert Frost has a clarity any wordsmith would desire
But the best poet’s name is Benjamin Zephaniah
It illuminates the darkness
With its burning comet trail
A symphony in seven syllables, a golden holy grail
The philosophy and phrases of a Rasta prophesier
Benjamin Obadiah
Iqbal Zephaniah
(A tribute to the great man, picture by David Morris via Wikimedia Commons)
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Benjamin_Zephaniah_University_of_Hull.jpg
R A Porter
Wed 26th Jun 2024 17:51
Thank you Penguin, you are of course correct; at least the poem is about the sound rather than the spelling, but I will make the required adjustment!