AGARD, John 1949-

PERSONAL: Born 1949, in British Guiana (now Guyana); immigrated to England, 1977. Education: Attended Roman Catholic secondary school in Georgetown, British Guiana (now Guyana).

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Candlewick Press, Inc., 2067 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02140.

CAREER: Writer. Commonwealth Institute, London, England, touring lecturer; South Bank Centre, London, writer-in-residence, 1993; British Broadcasting Corp., writer-in-residence for Windrush project. Also worked as an actor and a performer with a jazz group.

AWARDS, HONORS: Poetry prize, Casa de la Amèricas (Cuba), 1982; Other Award, Children's Rights Workshop, 1986, for Say It Again, Granny! Twenty Poems from Caribbean Proverbs.

WRITINGS:

JUVENILE AND YOUNG ADULT POETRY

I Din Do Nuttin and Other Poems, illustrated by Susanna Gretz, Bodley Head (London, England), 1983.

Say It Again, Granny! Twenty Poems from Caribbean Proverbs, illustrated by Susanna Gretz, Bodley Head (London, England), 1986.

The Calypso Alphabet, illustrated by Jennifer Bent, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 1989.

Go Noah, Go!, illustrated by Judy Brown, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1990.

Laughter Is an Egg, illustrated by Alan Rowe, Viking (London, England), 1990.

(Editor) Life Doesn't Frighten Me at All, Heinemann (London, England), 1989, Henry Holt (New York, NY), 1990.

(With Grace Nichols) No Hickory, No Dickory, No Dock: A Collection of Caribbean Nursery Rhymes, Viking (London, England), 1991, published as No Hickory, No Dickory, No Dock: Caribbean Nursery Rhymes, illustrated by Cynthia Jabar, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 1994.

Grandfather's Old Bruk-a-down Car, illustrated by Kevin Dean, Bodley Head (London, England), 1994.

(Editor, with Grace Nichols, and contributor) A Caribbean Dozen: Poems from Caribbean Poets, illustrated by Cathie Felstead, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 1994, published as A Caribbean Dozen: A Collection of Poems, Walker Books (Boston, MA), 1995.

(With others) Another Day on Your Foot and I Would Have Died, illustrated by Colin McNaughton, Macmillan (London, England), 1996.

(Editor) Why Is the Sky?, illustrated by Andrzej Klimowski, Faber & Faber (London, England), 1996.

We Animals Would Like a Word with You, illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura, Bodley Head (London, England), 1996.

Get Back, Pimple!, Viking (London, England), 1996.

From the Devil's Pulpit, Bloodaxe Books (Newcastle upon Tyne, England), 1997.

Hello New! New Poems for a New Century, illustrated by Lydia Monks, Orchard (London, England), 2000.

Points of View with Professor Peekaboo, illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura, Bodley Head (London, England), 2000.

Come Back to Me, My Boomerang, illustrated by Lydia Monks, Orchard (London, England), 2001.

(Editor, with Grace Nichols) Under the Moon and over the Sea: A Collection of Caribbean Poems, illustrated by Christopher Corr, Candlewick Press (Cambridge, MA), 2002.

Einstein, the Girl Who Hated Maths, illustrated by Satoshi Kitamura, Hodder Wayland (London, England), 2002.

CHILDREN'S FICTION

Letters for Lettie and Other Stories, illustrated by Errol Lloyd, Bodley Head (London, England), 1979.

Dig away Two-Hole Tim, illustrated by Jennifer Northway, Bodley Head (London, England), 1981.

Lend Me Your Wings, illustrated by Adrienne Kennaway, Little, Brown (Boston, MA), 1987.

The Emperor's Dan-Dan, illustrated by Alison Forsyth, Hodder & Stoughton (London, England), 1992.

Oriki and the Monster Who Hated Balloons, illustrated by Jenny Stowe, Longman (Harlow, England), 1994.

The Monster Who Loved Telephones, illustrated by Jenny Stowe, Longman (Harlow, England), 1994.

The Monster Who Loved Cameras, illustrated by Jenny Stowe, Longman (Harlow, England), 1994.

The Monster Who Loved Toothbrushes, illustrated by Jenny Stowe, Longman (Harlow, England), 1994.

(With Korky Paul) Brer Rabbit, the Great Tug-o-War, Barron's Educational Series (Hauppauge, NY), 1998.

Some of Agard's work has been translated into Welsh.

OTHER

Shoot Me with Flowers (poetry), illustrated by Marilyn Agard, privately printed (Guyana), 1974.

Man to Pan: A Cycle of Poems to Be Performed with Drums and Steelpans, Casa de las Américas (Havana, Cuba), 1982.

Limbo Dancer in the Dark (poetry), privately printed, 1983.

Limbo Dancer in Dark Glasses (poetry), Greenheart, 1983.

Livingroom, Black Ink Collective (London, England), 1983.

Mangoes and Bullets: Selected and New Poems, 1972-84, Pluto Press (London, England), 1985.

(With others) Wake Up, Stir About: Songs for Assembly (traditional tunes), arranged by Barrie Carson Turner, illustrated by Peter Kent, Unwin Hyman (Cambridge, MA), 1989.

Lovelines for a Goat-born Lady (poetry), Serpent's Tail (London, England), 1990.

A Stone's Throw from Embankment: The South Bank Collection (poetry), Royal Festival Hall (London, England), 1993.

The Great Snakeskin (children's play), illustrated by Jill Newton, Ginn (Aylesbury, England), 1993.

(Editor) Poems in My Earphone, Longman (Harlow, England), 1995.

Weblines (poetry), Bloodaxe Books (Newcastle upon Tyne, England), 2000.

Work represented in anthologies, including Border Country: Poems in Progress, edited by David Hart, Wood Wind Publications (Birmingham, England), 1991; and Grandchildren of Albion, edited by Michael Horovitz, New Departures (Piedmont, Bisley, Stroud, Gloucester, England), 1992. Contributor of poetry to periodicals, including Poetry Review.

SIDELIGHTS: John Agard's writings are infused with the Caribbean rhythms of his homeland in South America. Agard was born and raised in what is now Guyana, east of Venezuela, near the southeastern edge of the Caribbean Sea. He had completed high school when he relocated to England in 1977, where he now makes his home. Agard is highly regarded as a performance poet whose work is most powerful when read aloud but, with numerous volumes of poetry and prose to his credit, he has earned a solid readership as well.

Many of Agard's published writings are children's verse collections or stories. His vocal rhythms, combined with an affinity for word play, puns, and jokes, are appealing to children of all ages. Agard's stories are sometimes retellings or revisions of folk tales and are enlivened by his own sense of the comic and his appreciation for the absurd. His poems concern the elements of everyday life common to children everywhere, made unique by the poet's tendency toward Caribbean dialect and whimsical humor. Agard often writes of Anancy, the trickster spider of folk tradition, and Agard himself has been likened to a trickster of the spoken word.

For beginning readers Agard created The Calypso Alphabet, a book full to the brim with exotic new words and concepts embedded in the musical ambience of Caribbean idiom and illustrated by Jennifer Brent with colors, people, and landscapes which epitomize life in the West Indies. I Din Do Nuttin and Other Poems retains the idiomatic flavor of Agard's verse, while his rhymes describe the ordinary events and people common to all children. Agard's poems also demonstrate his talent for seeing the adult world through the eyes of a child, according to Robert Protherough in the St. James Guide to Children's Writers, and reveal Agard's cleverness at what Protherough described as the "lively turning upside-down of conventional phrases," a device that can be as thought-provoking as it is amusing. Another collection, Grandfather's Old Bruk-a-down Car, explores the relationships between people and the objects they hold dear. Wherever they live, children know someone who would not feel complete without a special object, whether it is a car, a violin, or even a body part. Laughter Is an Egg contains rhymes and riddles for the young reader who welcomes the challenge of a mystery. Solving some of the riddles and untangling the word plays may not be as easy as one might think.

Lest a reader presume that Agard's sole objective as a poet is to entertain, a Junior Bookshelf reviewer of Laughter Is an Egg emphasized that Agard's poetry reveals "a serious man" dedicated to the often difficult art of crafting exceptional poetry. Even in rhymes intended for children Agard uses his work as a vehicle for his thoughts on topical issues and trends. No Hickory, No Dickory, No Dock: A Collection of Caribbean Nursery Rhymes, which Agard wrote with fellow Guyanese poet Grace Nichols, contains poems compelling in their musicality, according to a Kirkus Reviews contributor. The selections, both original verse and Caribbean-style parodies of traditional Mother Goose rhymes, are intended for the very young, yet one of Agard's contributions, "Baby-K Rap Rhyme," is a lament for the ecological damage humans have inflicted from one end of our planet to the other. In We Animals Would Like a Word with You he questions in lyrical rhyme the way people treat the world's animals. In his review of the book for the Times Educational Supplement, Josephine Balmer commented that Agard "subverts and invents," ultimately producing "the best that poetry can offer."

For older students, Points of View with Professor Peekaboo addresses a range of contemporary issues, from the majesty of the natural world to the increasing degradation of the environment to the question of genetic identity. Though some reviewers faulted the volume for its uneven poetic quality, in the Times Educational Supplement John Mole cited the work as an "often funny, inventive" collection.

For the more mature teenager, Agard has produced From the Devil's Pulpit, wherein he ruminates about the hedonistic, self-centered nature of modern society from the devil's point of view. He addresses a panorama of the world's ills as many perceive them: sex, religion, politics, art, and gambling, to name a few, along with genuine horrors such as the carnage in Bosnia and the civil war in Northern Ireland. In more than a hundred poems Agard demonstrates his versatility with poetic form, syncopating verses with his trademark lilting idiom and indulging his propensity for jokes, puns, and playful humor. In School Librarian Susan Elkin called From the Devil's Pulpit "spiky, rude, clever, irreverent and, often, very funny." In her review for the London Observer, poet Helen Dunmore called Agard "one of the most eloquent contemporary poets." Bruce King, in a review for World Literature Today, pointed out that Agard as Lucifer is neither a proponent of sin nor a moralist, but "more a social satirist," and that From the Devil's Pulpit, while addressing some of the more controversial issues of contemporary times, is by no means an exploration of depravity or a defense of misbehavior. King suggested that the volume reflects the philosophy that "life consists of balance, opposites, temptations, curiosity, excitements, pleasures; every god needs a devil, every order needs a disorder, every established hierarchy needs skeptical mockery." Elements of this philosophy can be seen throughout the body of Agard's work.

Agard has also written stories for children. Dig away Two-Hole Tim is set in Guyana, and introduces young readers to the colorful English dialect of the West Indies. More a captioned picture book than a continuous narrative, it tells the story of an unintentionally mischievous boy preoccupied with holes: digging, cutting, exploring, or simply pondering holes. The Emperor's Dan-Dan is a Caribbean-style versification of the story of the emperor's new clothes, replete with appropriate dialect and featuring the trickster Anancy as the emperor's tailor. Another of Agard's stories is Brer Rabbit, the Great Tug-o-War, in which the great American trickster matches wits with Rhino and Hippo, luring them into a competition that none can win.

In addition to his prolific and successful career as an author for all ages, Agard has also worked toward popularizing Caribbean poets, especially among young readers of England and North America. With Grace Nichols he compiled A Caribbean Dozen: Poems from Caribbean Poets, in which they introduce the work of thirteen Caribbean poets from around the world, amplifying their poems by adding photographs and personal background narratives from each poet included. The collection was well received by critics, including John Mole, who reported in the Times Educational Supplement: "Even the weakest of [the selections] . . . are joyously enthusiastic." "Most of the entries here speak directly to the child's own world," Bettina Berch noted in Belles Lettres. In Books for Keeps Morag Styles called A Caribbean Dozen "a great treat," even for readers as young as primary school students.

Agard also edited a thematic collection titled Why Is the Sky? that addresses the sometimes imponderable questions children ask. "It is a richly seasoned stew," wrote a Junior Bookshelf reviewer, drawn from every corner of the world and from the ages. The poetry comes from Shakespeare and from the Bible; also represented are twentieth-century poets such as Langston Hughes and Helen Dunmore. The selections are intended for young readers, though adult poetry is included as well. Linda Saunders described Why Is the Sky? in School Librarian as "an excellent collection of poetry.... There is something here for every child."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

St. James Guide to Children's Writers, 5th edition, St. James Press (Detroit, MI), 1999, pp. 8-9.

PERIODICALS

Belles Lettres, summer, 1995, Bettina Berch, review of A Caribbean Dozen: Poems from Caribbean Poets, p. 45.

Black Scholar, winter, 1993, Denise de Cairnes Narain, review of Lovelines for a Goat-born Lady, pp. 36-38.

Booklist, March 15, 1991, review of Life Doesn't Frighten Me at All, p. 1742; May 1, 1995, Hazel Rochman, review of No Hickory, No Dickory, No Dock: A Collection of Caribbean Nursery Rhymes, p. 1576.

Books for Keeps, January, 1988, review of Say It Again, Granny! Twenty Poems from Caribbean Proverbs, p. 16; July, 1991, review of Laughter Isan Egg, p. 11; November, 1992, review of Go Noah, Go!, p. 17; May, 1993, review of The Calypso Alphabet, pp. 8-9; September, 1994, Morag Styles, review of A Caribbean Dozen, p. 88; March, 1997, M. Styles, review of We Animals Would Like a Word with You, p. 23; May, 1997, review of Another Day on Your Foot and I Would Have Died, pp. 24-25; January, 1998, review of Why Is the Sky?, p. 20; May, 1998, Elaine Moss, review of Brer Rabbit, the Great Tug-o-War, p. 6; March, 2001, review of Points of View with Professor Peekaboo, p. 24.

English Journal, April, 1991, Elizabeth A. Belden and Judith M. Beckman, review of Life Doesn't Frighten Me at All, p. 84.

Growing Point, March, 1983, review of I Din Do Nuttin and Other Poems, p. 4040; July, 1986, review of Say It Again, Granny!, p. 4654.

Instructor, August, 2001, "Jump into Shape Poetry," p. 54.

Journal of Commonwealth Literature, August, 1992, review of Lovelines for a Goat-born Lady, p. 200.

Junior Bookshelf, June, 1980, review of Letters for Lettie and Other Stories, p. 123; February, 1982, review of Dig away Two-Hole Tim, p. 12; August, 1983, review of I Din Do Nuttin and Other Poems, pp. 156-157; August, 1990, review of Laughter Is an Egg, p. 172; April, 1991, review of Go Noah, Go!, pp. 53-54; February, 1993, review of The Emperor's Dan-Dan, p. 9; February, 1995, review of Grandfather's Old Bruk-a-down Car, p. 14; August, 1996, review of Get Back, Pimple!, p. 153; October, 1996, review of Why Is the Sky?, pp. 189-190.

Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 1989, review of Lend Me Your Wings, p. 619; May 15, 1995, review of No Hickory, No Dickory, No Dock, p. 706; April 15, 2001, review of Weblines, pp. 550-551.

London Review of Books, December 5, 1985, Blake Morrison, review of Mangoes and Bullets: Selected and New Poems, 1972-84, pp. 14-15.

Observer (London, England), October 26, 1997, Helen Dunmore, review of From the Devil's Pulpit, p. 15.

Publishers Weekly, November 24, 1989, review of The Calypso Alphabet, p. 70; June 5, 1995, review of No Hickory, No Dickory, No Dock, p. 64; July 23, 2001, review of Weblines, p. 69.

School Librarian, February, 1991, Pauline Long, review of Go Noah, Go!, p. 17; November, 1992, Celia Gibbs, review of The Emperor's Dan-Dan, p. 138; November, 1994, Vivienne Grant, review of Grandfather's Old Bruk-a-down Car, p. 160; February, 1997, review of Why Is the Sky?, p. 41; November, 1997, review of From the Devil's Pulpit, p. 220; autumn, 1998, Vivienne Grant, review of Brer Rabbit, the Great Tug-o-War, p. 129; spring, 2001, review of Points of View with Professor Peekaboo, p. 42.

School Library Journal, September, 1982, Marilyn Payne Phillips, review of Dig away Two-Hole Tim; July, 1989, Carolyn Caywood, review of Lend Me Your Wings, p. 61; April, 1990, Marilyn Iarusso, review of The Calypso Alphabet, p. 86; August, 1990, Annette Curtis Klause, review of Life Doesn't Frighten Me at All, p. 166; August, 1995, Barbara Osborne Williams, review of No Hickory, No Dickory, No Dock, pp. 131-132.

Times Educational Supplement, February 16, 1990, Gerard Benson, review of Life Doesn't Frighten Me at All, p. 67; July 13, 1990, Kevin Crossley-Holland, review of Laughter Is an Egg, p. 28; June 14, 1991, Charles Causley, review of No Hickory, No Dickory, No Dock, p. 25; February 5, 1993, James Riordan, review of The Emperor's Dan-Dan, p. R10; November 11, 1994, Gillian Clarke, review of Grandfather's Old Bruk-a-down Car, p. R7; December 2, 1994, John Mole, review of A Caribbean Dozen, p. A14; September 22, 1995, J. Mole, review of Poems in My Earphone; March 8, 1996, p. X; Jill Pirrie, review of Get Back, Pimple!, p. II; December 13, 1996, Josephine Balmer, review of We Animals Would Like a Word with You; January 19, 2001, J. Mole, review of Points of View with Professor Peekaboo, p. 20.

Times Literary Supplement, January 18, 1991, Giles Foden, review of Lovelines for a Goat-born Lady, p. 18; July 27, 2001, Paula Burnett, review of Weblines, p. 23.

Wilson Library Bulletin, November, 1990, Cathi MacRae, review of Life Doesn't Frighten Me at All, p. 129.

World Literature Today, spring, 1998, Bruce King, review of From the Devil's Pulpit, pp. 438-439; summer-autumn, 2001, Bruce King, review of Weblines, p. 118.

OTHER

Roots and Water (videotape series), Films for the Humanities and Sciences, 2000.*