John Agard

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A unique and energetic force in contemporary British poetry, John Agard's poems combine acute social observation, puckish wit and a riotous imagination to thrilling effect. Born in Guyana, South America in 1949, Agard moved to Britain in the late seventies. Perhaps unsurprisingly, cultural differences, class divisions and subverted racial stereotypes abound in his often questing, questioning work. But as serious as Agard's themes often are, his is always a playful, entertaining approach; humour as a means of disarming the worst of the world. Here is a poet who revels in disrupting accepted opinion and coolly undermining the po-faced establishment.

Critic and novelist David Dabydeen has described Agard's poetry as "a wonderful affirmation of life, in a language that is vital and joyous". Agard is also capable of crafting metered and rhymed forms. Take 'Flag', which tersely sketches out the deadly weight of politicised symbols in its unnerving, repetitive rhyme scheme, or the series of mischievous sonnets from Agard's recent collection Clever Backbone, celebrating life's diversity in their witty exploration of Darwinian evolutionary theory.

Agard’s captivating Anglo-Caribbean accent always draws you in; rich, exotic and lively, weighing the worth of each word. Helen Dunmore's view of Agard is as an "eloquent contemporary poet", whose work is "rich in literary and cultural allusion, yet as direct as a voice in the bus queue".