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From the Devil's Pulpit
Agard gives us a Devil's eye view of the world, sweeping from Genesis across time. A sometimes poignant, bawdy, witty, and sophisticated shape-shifter, even sex-switcher, Agard's Devil engages with the mythical world, metaphysics, theology, politics and the arts - and takes us to Wimbledon Center Court and Lords cricket ground as well. He won the Casa de la Americas Prize in 1982 and in 1993 became the first Writer in Residence at London's South Bank Center, who published his book, A Stone's Throw from the Embankment during that residency.
- GenresPoetry
127 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
7 people want to read
About the author
John Agard
115 books37 followersJohn Agard was born in Guyana and emigrated to Britain in 1977. He has worked as an actor and a performer with a jazz group and spent several years as a lecturer for the Commonwealth Institute, travelling all over Britain giving talks, performances and workshops. He has visited literally thousands of schools and enjoys the live contact and the joy of children responding although it can be hard work.
John Agard started writing poems when he was about 16 - some of these early efforts were published in his school magazine. Many of his poems now are composed while looking out of train windows.
"Try the best with what you have right now
If you don't have horse, then ride cow."
It is in his poetry that John Agard makes his greatest contribution to children's literature. Like the best authors, he brings something unique to children's experience - a view of the world tempered by his own childhood, a feeling for the rhythms and cadences of its language, and a sophisticated understanding of the advantages and limitations of several forms of English. That he can make the "standard" forms work superbly is evident from many of his poems for adults. For children, with whom he communicates more directly, the lyrical Guyanese forms serve his purposes to perfection.
Agard is not a literary poet but also a performing poet and has a strong sense of his audience. When he writes for children, he seems to see them sitting at his feet. He is more interested in the ideas and words he is delivering to them than in the creation of complex fictional characters with whom his readers might engage. He lives in Sussex and is married to Grace Nichols, a respected Caribbean poet and co-author of a collection of Caribbean nursery rhymes, NO HICKORY, NO DICKORY, NO DOCK.
John Agard started writing poems when he was about 16 - some of these early efforts were published in his school magazine. Many of his poems now are composed while looking out of train windows.
"Try the best with what you have right now
If you don't have horse, then ride cow."
It is in his poetry that John Agard makes his greatest contribution to children's literature. Like the best authors, he brings something unique to children's experience - a view of the world tempered by his own childhood, a feeling for the rhythms and cadences of its language, and a sophisticated understanding of the advantages and limitations of several forms of English. That he can make the "standard" forms work superbly is evident from many of his poems for adults. For children, with whom he communicates more directly, the lyrical Guyanese forms serve his purposes to perfection.
Agard is not a literary poet but also a performing poet and has a strong sense of his audience. When he writes for children, he seems to see them sitting at his feet. He is more interested in the ideas and words he is delivering to them than in the creation of complex fictional characters with whom his readers might engage. He lives in Sussex and is married to Grace Nichols, a respected Caribbean poet and co-author of a collection of Caribbean nursery rhymes, NO HICKORY, NO DICKORY, NO DOCK.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
July 10, 2023
Agard is a great, great poet, and this is a brilliant collection most of the way, especially his writing about Thatcher and The Falklands, the Devil slowly finding its way to the British Isles, but eventually this becomes very gimmicky; there's only so much you can wring out of this subject.
Displaying 1 of 1 review