Reviews: Weblines

A critical perspective from Contempory Writers.

   Agard is a mesmeric performer and there is something distinctly Puckish about him. Mayhem, overturning the established order appeals to him. He also has a lush sensual side, expressed in some fine erotic poems. Although he has lived in England since 1978 his imagination is still deeply Caribbean.

   Agard often writes sequences and books constructed around a single theme. His first book Man to Pan (1982) celebrated the steel drums of calypso. In Limbo Dancer in Dark Glasses (1983), limbo, having originated on the slave ships, is seen as iconic of Caribbean culture. Since his move to England his poetry has become less elemental, more satirical and pointed. Typical is 'Listen Mr Oxford Don' from Mangoes and Bullets (1985):

'I didn't graduate
I immigrate.'

   He has been prolific in recent years with From the Devil's Pulpit (1997) and Weblines (2000). From the Devil's Pulpit explores the omnipresence of satanic influence in modern life: For Agard, the Devil is a necessary evil, an anarchic force, insinuating himself at every level of modern life. The Devil rearranges Mrs Thatcher's St Francis speech from the steps of No. 10 Downing Street:

'Where milk is laid in the mouths of primary toddlers Let me lay to rest such largesse and bother.'

   Weblines is a book of selected and new poems, reprinting 'From Man to Pan' and 'Limbo Dancer in Dark Glasses', along with a new set of Ananse poems. Ananse is the traditional spider prophet - trickster and spider hero - of the Caribbean. The Ananse stories are primal stories - creation myths. Typical is 'How Wisdom and Commonsense were Scattered'. In prose paraphrase the story is: Ananse gathers up all the wisdom into a gourdpot but with the gourdpot hanging from his belly he could no longer climb a tree. His youngest child tells him to put the gourdpot on his head. In vexation at having his sum of wisdom questioned and added to in this way, Ananse throws the pot down and wisdom is scattered. Agard has helped to make Caribbean culture accessible to a wide audience.

   One way in which he has done this has been to write for children. His many books, often illustrated, are as philosophical as his adult books but entirely accessible to children. In Come Back to Me My Boomerang (2001) he has a dialogue between a circle and a square on the respective virtues of rectangularity and circularity. In Get Back, Pimple (1996) he has a poem in which the animals dream of exploiting humans in the way that humans exploit them. A deer says:

'I'd love to remove man's balls
And make a perfume.
I'd rub a little behind my horns
And call it musk.'

He has also written a play for schoolchildren, The Great Snakeskin (1993).

Copyright © Peter Forbes