John Agard was born and educated in Guyana and emigrated to Britain in 1977. He has written many books for children and adults.
His poem "Half-caste" is on the AQA English GCSE syllabus, and every year he tours the UK performing with other top poets for GCSE students.
His children's poetry includes We Animals Would Like a Word with You, Laughter is an Egg, Einstein the Girl Who Hated Maths and Hello H2O. His adult collections include Mangoes and Bullets, From the Devil's Pulpit and Weblines.
He became the first writer-in-residence at the South Bank Centre in 1993 and at the BBC in 1998.
His awards include the Casa de las Americas Poetry Prize, the Guyana Prize, a CLPE Award, a Cholmodeley Prize. In 2007 in was nominated for a Nibbie.
From humble beginnings as a Hip-Hop DJ, Mister Gee honed his spoken word skills as the host of the renowned performance poetry club Brix-tongue and is now one of the stars of the UK poetry scene. He has performed at the New York Nuyorican Poets Café and the Black Lily night in Philadelphia (home to Jill Scott and the Roots), as well as at the Edinburgh Festival. He runs workshops in schools and his album Poetry in the Key of Gee was released to critical acclaim.
Mister Gee is a co-winner of a Sony Gold Award for Radio as the resident poet on the Russell Brand Show on BBC Radio 2, and is the resident poet of the hit West-End musical Into The Hoods.
From humble beginnings as a Hip-Hop DJ, Mister Gee honed his spoken word skills as the host of the renowned performance poetry club Brix-tongue and is now one of the stars of the UK poetry scene. He has performed at the New York Nuyorican Poets Café and the Black Lily night in Philadelphia (home to Jill Scott and the Roots), as well as at the Edinburgh Festival. He runs workshops in schools and his album Poetry in the Key of Gee was released to critical acclaim.