This study guide will help you analyze the poem “The British (serves 60 million) by Benjamin Zephaniah. You can also find a summary of the poem, as well as ideas for interpreting it and putting it into perspective.
Presentation of the poem
Title: “The British (serves 60 million)” (2000)
Author: Benjamin Zephaniah
Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah (b. 1958) is a British writer, musician, and poet. Zephaniah has written several novels, including Face (1999) and Refugee Boy (2001). He also published several collections of poetry. In 2008, he was listed as one of Britain’s top 50 post-war writers by The Times magazine. The poem “The British (serves 60 million)” was published in 2000 in the volume Wicked Worlds!.
Excerpt from the study guide:
The poem can be divided into three parts, which correspond to its three stanzas. The first part presents the origins of the British nation, mentioning the earliest known inhabitants of Great Britain: “Picts, Celts, and Silures” (l. 1), and then continuing with the other peoples who settled there later (the Roman conquerors, the Anglo-Saxons, and the Norman conquerors). This part shows that the British nation has always been made up of different cultures, similarly to how it is today.
The second part of the poem shows the modern additions to British society. Here, the speaker mentions a variety of nations, starting from “hot Chileans, cool Jamaicans” (l. 7) and ending with “Afghans, Spanish, Turkish, Kurdish, Japanese/ And Palestinians” (ll. 16-17). The second part offers further instructions which all point to the need to allow these people to contribute to British society, while also keeping their own culture. The second part also contains a note which serves as a reminder to the reader that being prejudiced against any of those groups causes harm.
The third part presents a warning which includes one of the poem’s main messages. Like the note in the second part, the warning states that all representatives of British society should be treated equally and fairly.
