Too Black, Too Strong is Benjamin Zephaniah’s first new book of poems for five years. It addresses the struggles of black Britain more forcefully than all his previous books.
Too Black, Too Strong includes poems written while working with Michael Mansfield QC and other Tooks barristers on the Stephen Lawrence case and other high profile political trials.
Benjamin Zephaniah is a poet who won’t stay silent, who doesn’t pull any punches, writing out a sense of urgency and a commitment to social justice. He opens this hard-hitting and blackly funny book of poems with an outspoken comment on where he’s coming from, setting his poetry against the political landscape of Britain:
‘These poems are about how I feel now…The more I travel, the more I love Britain, and it is because I love the place that I fight for my rights here…It is probably one of the only places that could take an angry, illiterate, uneducated, ex-hustler, rebellious Rastafarian and give him the opportunity to represent his country…
‘I live in two places, Britain and the world, and it is my duty to explore and express the state of justice in both of them…I want the “project” to work. The day will come when we move from the margins and come to the centre; I just want it to be today.’

Published by Bloodaxe
ISBN 0-85224-554-9
£7.95
Cover design by Colin Graham