John Agard's 'Reporting from the front line of the great Dictionary Disaster'

John Agard (1949-)

My first encounter with John Agard’s poetry was his collection ‘Love Lines for a Goat-Born Lady’.

I don’t know if I’d read Grace Nichols first and then read John Agard because they were married or if it were the other way round and it really didn’t matter. They were both eye opening.

When 'Milk and Honey’ by Rupi Kaur recently went mega on the best seller lists, journalists tied themselves in knots trying to explain the book’s baffling popularity. It was direct. it was immediate, It was not ‘dusty’.

Made me wonder where the journalists had been for the past fifty years or so. Or what kind of poetry they were reading. They had certainly not been reading John Agard, or Grace Nichols, or a list that's too long to fill out.

You can be direct and immediate and intelligent. You can also be witty and make a political point without resorting to political slogans while you’re doing it. If you don’t believe me go read John Agard or Grace Nichols. My only regret here is that John Arlott is not reading this poem.