Description
John Agard has been broadening the canvas of British poetry for the past 40 years with his mischievous, satirical fables which overturn all our expectations. His ninth Bloodaxe collection, Border Zone, explores a far-reaching canvas of British/Caribbean transatlantic connections, sweeping across centuries and continents. His border territory ranges from Love in a Sceptred Isle, a novella-like narrative poem of a romance between Barbados-born photographer, Victor, and Welsh librarian, Rhiannon, told with lyrical tenderness and thought-provoking wit, to Casanova the Philosopher, a sequence of sonnets in the voice of the legendary Venetian philosophically observing 18th-century English ways in a tongue-in-cheek memoir and travelogue. This is a diverse collection where the thought-provokingly mischievous, bawdy and elegiac rub shoulders alongside the sequence The Plants Are Staying Put - with the poet turning overnight lockdown gardener - as well as calypso poems, where the Guyana-born winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry puts on his hat as 'poetsonian', a term he coined in the 80s in tribute to the inventive lyrics of the calypsonian, a crucial strand of Agard's varied, innovative, and often satirical poetic output.
About the Author
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 publishes four books in 2022, the other three being Inspector Dreadlock Holmes & Other Stories (Small Axes), a collection of children's poetry, Follow that Word (Hachette), and a children's picture book Windrush Child (Walker Books, illustrated by Sophie Bass). He was awarded The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry for 2012, and in 2021 became the first poet to win the Book Trust's Lifetime Achievement Award in children's literature. He won the Casa de las Americas 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 was 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 South Bank 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).
Reviews
If Agard had not already been forged in the roller-coaster aftermath of empire, there would be an urgent need for society to invent someone like him. -- William Wallis * Financial Times Magazine *
John Agard's first book since he finally won the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry is typically cosmopolitan, with one eye on the past and the other on the present...readers - especially schoolteachers and their pupils - tend to love his work... This thought-provoking, puckish, tender book will not disappoint them. -- Rory Waterman * Times Literary Supplement, on Travel Light Travel Dark *
In the year when we learnt of the damage and cruelty that the UK's hostile-environment policies inflicted on the Windrush generation, John Agard strikes back with these cleverly crafted parables of an outsider. The little green man's encounters and observations, his mix of wonder and wise caution, are given a voice that manages to be both naive and incisive. -- Maria Crawford * Financial Times (Poetry Books of the Year 2018), on The Coming of the Little Green Man *
Book Information
ISBN 9781780375885
Author John Agard
Format Paperback
Page Count 144
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd
About the Author
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 publishes four books in 2022, the other three being Inspector Dreadlock Holmes & Other Stories (Small Axes), a collection of children's poetry, Follow that Word (Hachette), and a children's picture book Windrush Child (Walker Books, illustrated by Sophie Bass). He was awarded The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry for 2012, and in 2021 became the first poet to win the Book Trust's Lifetime Achievement Award in children's literature. He won the Casa de las Americas 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 was 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 South Bank 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).
Reviews
If Agard had not already been forged in the roller-coaster aftermath of empire, there would be an urgent need for society to invent someone like him. -- William Wallis * Financial Times Magazine *
John Agard's first book since he finally won the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry is typically cosmopolitan, with one eye on the past and the other on the present...readers - especially schoolteachers and their pupils - tend to love his work... This thought-provoking, puckish, tender book will not disappoint them. -- Rory Waterman * Times Literary Supplement, on Travel Light Travel Dark *
In the year when we learnt of the damage and cruelty that the UK's hostile-environment policies inflicted on the Windrush generation, John Agard strikes back with these cleverly crafted parables of an outsider. The little green man's encounters and observations, his mix of wonder and wise caution, are given a voice that manages to be both naive and incisive. -- Maria Crawford * Financial Times (Poetry Books of the Year 2018), on The Coming of the Little Green Man *
Book Information
ISBN 9781780375885
Author John Agard
Format Paperback
Page Count 144
Imprint Bloodaxe Books Ltd
Publisher Bloodaxe Books Ltd
