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The Best Poet's Name

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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

 

🌷(4)

Benjamin Zephaniahtribute

◄ Brian Bilston - A Review

The Poets' Ball ►

Comments

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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!

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Ray Miller

Wed 3rd Apr 2024 15:06

Love it. You've spelt his name wrong, mind you.

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R A Porter

Fri 29th Mar 2024 21:09

Must admit Stephen, I was stretching it a bit with Norman Nicholson, but my Dad was from Ulverston, so he was a bit of a local South Lakes hero… growing up, our poetry volumes in the book case were : Selected Wordsworth , Selected Norman Nicholson and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam!

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Stephen Gospage

Fri 29th Mar 2024 16:52

Beautifully constructed, RA.

Lord Byron was GG Byron but I don't think that counts!

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