Levi Tafari is a British poet and performer. He was born and raised in the city of

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

by his Jamaican parents. He attended catering college, where he studied classical French cuisine and graduated with distinction. In the early 1980s, while working as a caterer, he started attending the Liverpool 8 Writers Workshop and decided to become a performance poet. Tafari was a firm member of the Rastafari movement and although his early performances were in that community, he saw it as his duty to reach a wider audience and began performing overseas. Tafari self-identifies as an Urban

Griot A griot (; ; Manding: jali or jeli (in N'Ko: , ''djeli'' or ''djéli'' in French spelling); Serer: kevel or kewel / okawul; Wolof: gewel) is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, and/or musician. The griot is a repos ...

(the griot being the traditional consciousness raiser, storyteller, newscaster and political agitator). He has four collections of poetry: ''Duboetry'' (1987), ''Liverpool Experience'' (1989), ''Rhyme Don’t Pay'' (1998) and ''From the Page to the Stage'' (2006). His plays have been performed at the Blackheath Theater in Stafford and the

Unity Theatre, Liverpool The Unity Theatre is a theatre in Liverpool, England. Formed by directors Gerry Dawson and Edgar Criddle as the Merseyside Left Theatre in the 1930s, the theatre became known as the Merseyside Unity Theatre in 1944. The company was known for be ...

. He was also the first person to use the term "duboetry." Several of his musical tracks can be found on compilation albums and he has recorded poetry, which has been released on audiocassette. Tafari often runs creative writing workshops at schools, colleges, universities and prisons. Most recently he has applied his work to working with the

British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lan ...

, undertaking tours to the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

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and

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. He was Writer in Residence at

Charles University in Prague ) , image_name = Carolinum_Logo.svg , image_size = 200px , established = , type = Public, Ancient , budget = 8.9 billion CZK , rector = Milena Králíčková , faculty = 4,057 , administrative_staff = 4,026 , students = 51,438 , undergr ...

. He has also appeared in many television programs including '' Blue Peter'' and ''

Grange Hill ''Grange Hill'' is a British children's television drama series, originally produced by the BBC and portraying life in a typical comprehensive school. The show began its run on 8 February 1978 on BBC1, and was one of the longest-running progra ...

''. He also made a film about Rastafari for BBC television's ''Everyman'' programme. In 2001, Tafari toured with scrap recycle band, Urban Strawberry Lunch. He has also worked with the Ghanaian drum-and-dance ensemble Delado, the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, jazz musician Dennis Rollins, and his own reggae band, Ministry of Love. Currently, Tafari is preparing a new collection of poems, experimenting in the recording studio with new sounds along with guitarist Eiko Falckenberg and he continues to perform his work in venues across the globe. In early 2009, Tafari worked with children from

Elmgrove Primary School Elmgrove Primary School (Sometimes referred to as simply Elmgrove and originally known as Elmgrove Elementary School) is a state-controlled Primary School situated in East Belfast, Northern Ireland. It opened in 1932 as Elmgrove Elementary Schoo ...

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

for their live performance in St George's Market. He attended the performance on 2 April 2009.

Bibliography

*''Duboetry'' (1987) *''Liverpool Experience'' (1989) *''Rhyme Don't Pay'' (1998) *''From the Page to the Stage'' (2006) *''Party Mania'' (2015)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tafari, Levi English male poets English people of Jamaican descent Living people Poets from Liverpool Year of birth missing (living people)