Literary Birthday – 21 June – John Agard

Happy Birthday, John Agard, born on 21 June 1949.

John Agard Quotes

1. Humour breaks down boundaries, it topples our self-importance, it connects people, and because it engages and entertains, it ultimately enlightens.
2. Poetry lives in the breath. It’s almost like going back to that collective thing, around the fire.
3. I feel an empathy with the bad characters… I think that’s part of the excitement of writing, how you can give a voice to certain characters, or people that are usually voiceless.

John Agard is an Afro-Guyanese playwright, poet, and children’s writer. He lives in the UK and was selected for the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2012. He is the author of Book: My Autobiography. He was awarded BookTrust’s Lifetime Achievement Award in November 2021.

Source for image: ILIV.YX, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IMG_John_Agard.jpg

by Amanda Patterson
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