Benjamin Zephaniah was laid to rest at a private funeral on Thursday. The Birmingham-born British poet and campaigner died on 7 December aged 65 and had been diagnosed with a brain tumour shortly before his death. Well-wishers have been asked to plant flowers or trees and name them in his memory, rather than sending cut flowers. A statement on X, formerly Twitter, said: “Today is Professor Benjamin Zephaniah’s funeral day. We know a lot of people want to show respect to him but cannot join his funeral. “As Benjamin does not like flowers without roots, we recommend that if you want to, please plant something like flowers, trees or any plants you want to, anywhere you wish, name them as Benjamin Zephaniah in memory of him.” Zephaniah, whose work often addressed political injustice, was also an animal rights activist and an ambassador for the Vegan Society. When he was nine years old he decided to stop eating animals. People wishing to donate in Zephaniah’s memory have been asked to send money to the charities the Vegan Society or Inquest, which helps bereaved families of people who have died in custody, immigration detention, mental health settings or where there have been failings by the state. Zephaniah was born in April 1958 in Handsworth and began performing poetry locally in his early teenage years. He had dyslexia and left school aged 14. In 1979, he moved to London, and his first collection, Pen Rhythm, was published the following year. His second poetry collection, The Dread Affair, was published in 1985 and featured a number of poems attacking the British legal system. In 1999, he wrote What Stephen Lawrence Has Taught Us as part of the campaign to find the murderers of the 18-year-old south-east Londoner. Zephaniah played the role of Jeremiah “Jimmy” Jesus in the BBC series Peaky Blinders.