Description Share Post The Poetry World of John Agard John Agard, illustrated by Shirley Hottier (Otter-Barry Books) ‘My birthday cards say,/ Happy Birthday, Dilroy!/ But, Mummy, tell me why/ they don’t put a little boy/ that looks a bit like me./ Why the boy on the card so white?’ Readers travel through the poet’s works in The Poetry World of John Agard from his first publication, I Din Do Nuthin, in which Happy Birthday, Dilroy appears, to Come Back to Me My Boomerang. Each selection is introduced by the poet. Thereafter, we learn about his influences, the settings of his works and then the shapes too. For example, in Say it Again, Granny, the ‘poems are in the voice of a‘ child ‘growing up in Britain‘ with a Caribbean grandmother. What’s more, we hear the grandmother’s proverbs, for example ‘– one finger can’t ketch flea‘. Then again, what about Laughter is an Egg? Could poetry be inspired by a title, one that haunts the writer? In fact, could its urgency means the poems might be written? Thereafter, what about cracking jokes? Cracking eggs? Then again, what about the ‘small joke/ in the middle of nowhere’? In fact, could it be that it might tell itself ‘to the birds‘ who tell it ‘to the trees’? Then again, what if this joke swells ‘the whole world- with laughter’? It seems these poems are desperate to be shared, read aloud, recited, recalled and returned to. In fact, by building this compilation, we’re reminded again of Agard’s force and skill. Thereafter, alongside this writer’s Windrush Child, we suggest this is an essential book for home and school. Bookwagon is overjoyed to welcome aboard The Poetry World of John Agard.
