Synopsis
WINNER OF THE QUEEN'S GOLD MEDAL FOR POETRY, 2012 John Agard has been broadening the canvas of British poetry for the past 30 years with his mischievous, satirical fables which overturn all our expectations. ALTERNATIVE ANTHEM is a live album of poems from books published over three decades, including JOHN AGARD LIVE!, a DVD of filmed highlights from recent performances made by filmmaker Pamela Robertson-Pearce. It includes poetry from WE BRITS in which the Guyanese-born word magician gives an outsider-insider view of British life in poems which both challenge and cherish our peculiar culture and hallowed institutions; WEBLINES that contains three powerful Caribbean myths of transformation: the steeldrum, the limbo dancer, and Anansi, the spider trickster god; FROM THE DEVIL'S PULPIT that is a Devil's eye view of the world, sweeping from Genesis across time; and, other collections including Mangoes and Bullets and Lovelines for a Goat-Born Lady, as well as his children's books, featuring some of Agard's best-known poems - 'Listen Mr Oxford don', 'Palm Tree King', 'Half-Caste', and 'English Girl Eats Her First Mango'. John Agard's collection CLEVER BACKBONE was published by Bloodaxe at the same time as ALTERNATIVE ANTHEM. He has since published Travel Light Travel Dark (2013), Playing the Ghost of Maimonides (2016) and The Coming of the Little Green Man (2018), with Border Zone forthcoming in 2022.
À propos de l?auteur
Poet, performer, anthologist, John Agard was born in Guyana and came to Britain in 1977. His many books include nine from Bloodaxe, From the Devil's Pulpit (1997), Weblines (2000), We Brits (2006), Alternative Anthem: Selected Poems (2009), Clever Backbone (2009), Travel Light Travel Dark (2013), Playing the Ghost of Maimonides (2016), The Coming of the Little Green Man (2018) and Border Zone (2022). He was the winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry for 2012, presented to him by The Queen on 12 March 2013, and in 2021 became the first poet to win BookTrust's Lifetime Achievement Award. He won the Casa de las Américas Prize in 1982, a Paul Hamlyn Award in 1997, and a Cholmondeley Award in 2004. We Brits was shortlisted for the 2007 Decibel Writer of the Year Award, and he has won the Guyana Prize twice, for his From the Devil's Pulpit and Weblines. The Coming of the Little Green Man is a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. As a touring speaker with the Commonwealth Institute, he visited nearly 2000 schools promoting Caribbean culture and poetry, and has performed on television and around the world. In 1989 he became the first Writer in Residence at London's Southbank Centre, who published A Stone's Throw from Embankment, a collection written during that residency. In 1998 he was writer-in-residence for the BBC with the Windrush project, and Bard at the Beeb, a selection of poems written during that residency, was published by BBC Learning Support. He was writer in residence at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich in 2007. He is popular writer for children and younger readers, with titles including Get Back Pimple (Viking), Laughter is an Egg (Puffin), Grandfather's Old Bruk-a-down Car (Red Fox), I Din Do Nuttin (Red Fox), Points of View with Professor Peekaboo (Bodley Head) and We Animals Would Like a Word with You (Bodley Head), which won a Smarties Award. Einstein, The Girl Who Hated Maths, a collection inspired by mathematics, and Hello H2O, a collection inspired by science, were published by Hodder Children's Books and illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura. Frances Lincoln Children's Books published his recent titles The Young Inferno (2008), his retelling of Dante, also illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura, which won the CLPE Poetry Award 2009, and Goldilocks on CCTV (2011). His first non-fiction work, Book (Walker Books, 2016), tells the history of books in the voice of the Book itself, and was longlisted for the 2016 Carnegie Medal. In 2016 John Agard was presented with the 50th Eleanor Farjeon Award for his exceptional contribution to children's books. He lives with the poet Grace Nichols and family in Sussex; they received the CLPE Poetry Award 2003 for their children's anthology Under the Moon and Over the Sea (Walker Books). Grace Nichols has been awarded The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, 2021.
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