I first encountered poetry when I was five years old. My mother would play records of Jamaican poems. My mother is from Jamaica and my father from Barbados. I was born in Handsworth in Birmingham, UK, and spent part of my childhood in Jamaica. When I was eight, my parents separated and I went to live with my mother. In 1968 I gave my first performance in a church, and by the age of 15, I was getting noticed in my hometown for my art.

I went to a school where I was the only black student and it was then that I developed a bond with animals. A cat came up to me one day when I was alone and I was so glad to have him for company. The next day he brought his friends with him and thereafter, I was always pleased to have them around me. That experience inculcated the notion of compassion in me and I became a vegan (someone who abstains from animal protein) at the age of 13. As a child, I used to think that poets were boring. It was also during my childhood that I discovered the seeds of creativity in myself. There was one artist whom I really liked, a musician called Big Youth, a sort of a reggae DJ.

I used to go to a kid’s home and play until one day, his sister said that their father did not want me to come because I was black. So I realised that life was about fun, but it was also about sadness; it was about pleasure, but also about pain and I grew up knowing the reality — the good and the bad.

I became a poet after I left school at the age of 14. My childhood made me realise the importance of respecting life in all its forms. I have written two books for children, Talking Turkeys and Funky Chickens. I feel that India has a very diverse culture and I would advise children here to learn to live with each other and grow up to be internationalists. Please also remember that poetry should not only say something, but it should also be fun.