Benjamin Zephaniah, the leading British performance poet, will become a chair of creative writing at Brunel University this month.

This is a first academic position for the 53-year-old Rastafarian, vegan and martial arts expert, who left school at 13 unable to read.

Zephaniah is dyslexic and spent time in prison for petty theft as a teenager, but he went on to publish his first book of poetry at 22.

He has since been voted Britain’s third favourite poet in a 2009 BBC poll – behind T.S Eliot and John Donne.

“I’d like to make this place known for performance poetry,” added Zephaniah, who sang in church at school, “I want to do something original.”

Head of the School of Arts, Dr William Leahy, said: “He is sure to enthuse, energise and educate our creative writing students.”