ACTIVITY 3 Humour, parody and personification Tinged with humour or subtle irony, the tone of Zephaniahs poems is often

warmhearted, a tone of understanding or overstanding (a term hes borrowed from Rastafarian jargon to refer to a deeper level of awareness). Such is the case with Talking Turkeys, a poem in favour of vegetarianism, in which Zephaniah, knowing that vegans like himself are still a minority, resorts to humour to plead for his cause. Talking turkeys!! Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas Cos' turkeys just wanna hav fun Turkeys are cool, turkeys are wicked An every turkey has a Mum. Be nice to yu turkeys dis christmas, Don't eat it, keep it alive, It could be yu mate, an not on your plate Say, Yo! Turkey I'm on your side. I got lots of friends who are turkeys An all of dem fear christmas time, Dey wanna enjoy it, dey say humans destroyed it An humans are out of dere mind, Yeah, I got lots of friends who are turkeys Dey all hav a right to a life, Not to be caged up an genetically made up By any farmer an his wife. Turkeys just wanna play reggae Turkeys just wanna hip-hop Can yu imagine a nice young turkey saying, I cannot wait for de chop, Turkeys like getting presents, dey wanna watch christmas TV, Turkeys hav brains an turkeys feel pain In many ways like yu an me. I once knew a turkey called........ Turkey He said "Benji explain to me please, Who put de turkey in christmas An what happens to christmas trees?", I said "I am not too sure turkey But its nothing to do wid Christ Mass Humans get greedy an waste more dan need be An business men mek loadsa cash'. Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas Invite dem indoors fe sum greens Let dem eat cake an let dem partake In a plate of organic grown beans, Be nice to yu turkey dis christmas An spare dem de cut of de knife, Join Turkeys United an dey'll be delighted An yu will mek new friends 'FOR LIFE'. from Talking Turkeys

British Council Argentina - Words on Words

Zephaniah loves parody1. In Propa Propaganda (1996), his poem I have a scheme is a parody of Martin Luther Kings speech I Have a Dream, and Terrible World parodies Louis Armstrongs song What a Wonderful World. In Talking Turkeys, theres a clear intertextual1 link with a very well known anonymous nonsense poem1 which is sung to the tune of Sousas Stars and Stripes1.
Be kind to your web-footed friends For that duck may be somebodys mother, She lives on the edge of a swamp Where the weather is always damp. You may think that this is the end, Well it is but to prove that youre all liars, Were going to sing it again, But only this time we will sing a little higher.

Repeat the song but sing it a bit higher. Continue for as many rounds as you can stand! The last verses are:
You may think that this is the end Well, youre right!

After finding the similarities between the song and the poem you can discuss why Zephaniah may have resorted to parody and whether the poem transcends mere imitation. You can also try to sing the poem to the tune of Stars and Stripes! Humour generally relies on anticlimax 1 -what makes you smile or laugh is whats unexpected, ironic or absurd. In Be nice to your turkeys dis Christmas, the reference to the Christmas season right after the request that we be nice to turkeys is truly anticlimatic, as all of us know its the time of year when most turkeys end up on the table. Go over the poem and provide further examples. Another major device used in the poem is personification. In it, turkeys think, behave and feel like humans. As Zephaniah is a vegan, his purpose in resorting to personification must be to make his readers / listeners empathise with turkeys. Which are the lines which, in your view. are the most moving? In informal American English, to talk turkey means to discuss something honestly and directly. Is the title a mere play on words in keeping with the poems light tone or does it have a more serious purpose? What about the play on words between Christmas and Christ Mass? He said Benji, explain to me please / who put de turkey in Christmas? On the Internet you can find a lot of information on this Christmas custom, for example, at http://www.animalaid.org.uk/campaign/vegan/xmasshop.htm. What follows is a summary: originally from America, turkeys reached Europe around 1524. Already in the early XVII century, they were the common meal at rich peoples Christmas table the poor having to be content with geese. However, it was Dickenss A Christmas Carol that popularised the serving of turkeys for Christmas dinner. All poetry should be read aloud to appreciate its rhythm and sound effects, and more so in the case of truly oral poetry such as Zephaniahs. The type of poetry he prefers is that of performance poets who are unpublished and want to stay that way. According to The Independent on Sunday, Zephaniahs poems bounce up from the page and demand to be read, rapped, sung and hip-hopped aloud. Is this true of this poem? Concentrate on some of the devices hes used to achieve this effect: end rhyme, internal rhyme (eg line7), repetition of whole lines, phrases, structures (eg the imperatives on lines 32, 33 & 34) and sounds (eg deyll be delighted)

British Council Argentina - Words on Words

One of Zephaniahs purposes as a poet is to change peoples way of looking at poetry, for them to feel less intimidated by a genre which most people relate to elaborate, obscure and sophisticated language. His style is just the opposite: he uses everyday speech and dialect, and writes words as they sound. Pick out the most striking examples of this in the poem. Have you ever come across poetry like this one? Do you agree with his use of 'unpoetic' language or do you think the language of poetry should be more 'educated'? The poem tells us turkeys wanna play reggae and hip hop. As both types of popular music have exerted a profound influence on Zephaniahs artistic output, an interesting activity would be to do some research on the two terms on the Internet. The site below will provide you with useful information on rap music and hiphop culture: www.yale.edu/ynhti/ curriculum/ units/1993/4/93.04.04.x.html

10 As a final activity your students might like to illustrate the poem. As an example, we have included an illustration by Nadia Finck from Tierra del Fuego, who won the second prize in the British Council competition in 2002.

British Council Argentina - Words on Words