John Agard

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John Agard (born June 21, 1949) is a playwright, poet, and children's writer from Guyana, who moved to England in 1977. He worked for the Commonwealth Institute from 1978 to 1985, travelling throughout the United Kingdom as a touring reader promoting the Caribbean culture to over 2000 schools. He became the first Writer in Residence at the South Bank Centre in London and became Poet in Residence at the BBC in London as well. He has won a total of five awards for his works, including the Paul Hamlyn Award for Poetry in 1997 and the Cholmondeley Award in 2004. Since 2005 his poetry has been featured as part of the AQA GCSE English syllabus. He currently resides in Lewes, near Brighton with his partner, the poet Grace Nichols. His poetry (Half Caste) is featured in the AQA English GCSE anthology - meaning that many GCSE students (years 10 - 11) in the United Kingdom must study his work for their GCSE English language paper 2..

[edit] Selected works

Man to Pan (1982) - Won the Casa de las Américas Prize in Cuba
Lend Me Your Wings (1987) - Won the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize (shortlist)
We Animals Would Like a Word With You (1996) - Won the bronze Nestlé Smarties Book Prize in the "6-8 years" category in 1997
From the Devil's Pulpit (1997) He currently lives in south England.

Many students find him very popular for his live acts