Benjamín Zephaniah is a poet from Birmingham, England who could not remember a time when he was not creating poetry, though he had little interest in it in school. He left formal education at age 13 but went on to inspire many young writers and rappers with his accessible work. Some of his well-known songs include "History," "Progress," and poems about religious war, gangsters, and political events like the Tiananmen Square protests.

1. Benjamín ZephaniahWas born and raised in Birmingham, England. He cannot remember a time when he was not creating poetry but this had nothing to do with school where poetry meant very little to him, in fact he had finished full time education at the age of 13.

2. He met Nelson Mandela

3. What people saidYoung writers have said that the accessibility of his work has inspired them to take up writing, many record sleeves bare witness to the fact that he has inspired many of the new generation of rappers, and of all the performance poets that emerged in the late seventies and early eighties he is one of the few that is still going strong.

4. His songsFor example: 1. History2. Progress3. Everybody Have a Gun4. Religious War5. Us and Dem6. Big Time Gangsters7. Want to Be a Soldier8. U Turn9. Me Love Me Mudder10. Tiananmen Square