Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Desert Island Discs
Presented by Kirsty Young
Poet whose work is studied widely in British schools; the BBC's first poet in residence; recipient of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
Eight records
Well this takes me back to an important part of our lives. Grace, my wife and a poet in her own right, we arrived in England in nineteen seventy seven. … I remember that period where we would all gather together in his living room. We'd be looking at Top of the Pops. You'll have Legs and Core. … And you heard Withering Heights by Kate Bush. And watching that figure emerge like some kind of enchanting banshee I think was a wonderful combination of the literary, the musical, and a cameo of a performance.
Oh, we were speaking about language rubbing off, and I remember around early seventies, one of our friends had migrated to Canada and returned home proudly with this collection of vinyl. … And when I heard the wind cries Mary, you'd almost expect the wind to cry s softly or the wind whispers softly. But here a woman's name uttered by the wind, I just felt there was an electricity there.
Shelter from the StormFavourite
he puts on on his little record player, says,'Come on, boys, listen to this He puts on some one by the name of Bob Dylan. Adolescent, we shake our heads. Sir, what sort of music is that? Never realizing in years to come that I would be so in love with the lyrics of Bob Dylan. In this particular version, the live concert Buddha Kan in Japan where he sings shelter from the storm. I think it's a marvellous synthesis of the personal, the political, the erotic, the spiritual. And since I'll be on a desert island, who knows? Grace might suddenly appear and say to me, I'll be your shelter from the storm.
oh yes, around um back to 1970 and around that same period of working for The Chronicle. We used to get news releases from Reuters and you'll hear about the Vietnam War. … And this simple ballad, this takes us right back to Vietnam.
Oh, um going back to that period, that so-called um hippie period. And uh this friend who brought back this collection of vinyl, he played Jetro Tull. I thought that was a man's name, and I liked the sound of that breevy flute. but also the texture of the voice. And it really brings back that period of possibility and innocence when you think you are eternal.
Her truck, read all about it. I think she's a beacon of what I would like to consider the future British generation. Mixed heritage. … Reminding us that as young people they have a voice. … So I think this is for my three daughters and the future Britain, where they must not feel themselves marginalized, regardless of their class or their role.
And I I mean choosing air tracks that was a very difficult task. How can I leave out um Bob Marley? … I ended up choosing this one, my Lord Invader. A Calypsonian going back to the thirties. I think this is a superb little piece of mischief where the s the Calypsonian takes on the persona of a not very quick witted person, despite obvious amateur overtures from a lady.
The keepsakes
The book
Thomas Merton
because I feel on that island Thomas Morton will touch many sides of me. ... he had this wonderful line where he speaks about each person being full of paradise.
The luxury
I think I will need that roll up of organic tobacco, if you don't mind.
In conversation
Presenter asks
When the alchemy is happening for you, when you're in front of a page and the words start coming, can you take me a little bit further into that feeling?
Well, um people speak of inspiration, or a line might come to you. You've heard the word like a benediction, a line just coming. You've heard the word grace, like it's a gift. … But it isn't something that's divorced from the mundane of life. The other day I was listening to um the postmortem on strictly come dancing. … She wanted to say that the improvement in the dance moves of some celebrity was heartening, so she says … To see him improve was butter to my heart.
Presenter asks
Two of your poems, Flag and Checking Out Me History, are part of the GCSE syllabus. Is it satisfying enough to you that they are taught, or is it very important to you how they are taught as poems?
Well, if poetry is approached in the classroom in a very dull way, you will communicate a dull experience. So a lot depends on an inspiring teacher. The teacher is the midwife of talent, so to speak.
The recording
Timestamps play the recording from that turn
Presenter
Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.
Presenter
For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.
Presenter
My castaway this week is the poet John Agard. His work is studied widely in British schools. He was the B B C's first poet in residence, and along with the likes of WH Orden and Philip Larkin he's a recipient of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.
Presenter
If these little snapshots from his C V make him sound like a fully paid up member of the English establishment, he isn't. Born in Guyana, he arrived here in the mid seventies, already playing with words like some people play with musical notes.
Presenter
If his style is often satirical, rhythmic, and teasing, his subjects provide the wincing realism, examining, say, the keloid scars of slavery or the historical myopia of a shared past judged solely through European eyes. He says he believes that the poet keeps us in touch with the vulnerable core of language that makes us what we are. And so, then, John Agard, when it comes to language, then, how would you best describe yourself and the point of a poet?
John Agard
Well, um the words of a great poet and human being, Shemos Heaney.
John Agard
Puts it very simply, Poetry, um, language in orbit.
John Agard
Because a poet is using the same number of um letters of the alphabet as any other human being within the English alphabet, twenty-six letters. But that magical moment when you happen to put the right words in the right order can trigger off a verbal chemistry that can touch your depths.
John Agard
and language begins to flay.
Presenter
When this alchemy is is happening for you, when you're in front of a page and the words start coming, and I I'm sure it must be terribly hard work, but as you describe it, there o there is a an intense um
Presenter
I don't want to use the word spiritual,'cause I think that's probably wrong, but there seems to be a very intense quality to what you've just described.
Presenter
Can you take me a little bit further into that feeling?
John Agard
Well, um people speak of inspiration, or a line might come to you.
John Agard
You've heard the word like a benediction, a line just coming. You've heard the word grace, like it's a gift. So those words grace, inspiration, benediction, obviously have um uh spiritual overtones. But it isn't something that's divorced from the mundane of life.
John Agard
The other day I was listening to um the postmortem on strictly come dancing.
John Agard
I'm one of the teachers whose first language is not English.
John Agard
She wanted to say that the improvement in the dance moves of some celebrity was heartening, so she says
John Agard
To see him improve was butter to my heart.
Presenter
Yes, I heard it.
John Agard
Which is beautiful because she wants to say she's taut.
Presenter
We could talk all day, we might talk all day, but for now we're you're gonna have to tell me about your first piece. Tell me about this first one.
John Agard
Well this takes me back to an important part of our lives. Grace, my wife and a poet in her own right, we arrived in England in nineteen seventy seven.
John Agard
And by sheer synchronicity, I ended up in Lewis because a German professor teaching at Sussex University said he can have me come and read to his students. And he introduced me to an English guy who became a dear friend, Christopher Wrigley, and we lived with him for about three years. And I remember that period where we would all gather together in his living room. We'd be looking at Top of the Pops. You'll have Legs and Core. The song's very much like a dinosaur when I speak of Legs and Core. And you heard Withering Heights by Kate Bush. And watching that figure emerge like some kind of enchanting banshee I think was a wonderful combination of the literary, the musical, and a cameo of a performance.
Speaker 4
Yeah.
Speaker 4
Uh
Speaker 4
Uh
Speaker 4
I see a pump down. So ho ho ho ho for me and now.
Presenter
That was Kate Bush and Wothering Heights and memories for you, John Agard, of not just Kate Bush herself, but Legs and Co., as you say. It sounds terribly dated these days. Two of your poems, Flag and Checking Out Me History, are apparently part of the GCSE syllabus.
Speaker 1
That's terrible.
Presenter
Is it satisfying enough to you that they are taught, or is it um very important to you how they are taught as poems?
John Agard
Well, if poetry is approached in the classroom in a very dull way, you will communicate a dull experience. So a lot depends on an inspiring teacher. The teacher is the midwife of talent, so to speak.
Presenter
In one of your anthologies, in fact, you dedicate it to was it your sixth form, teacher, mister Jilks?
John Agard
Well, two teachers were very vital when I was doing what's called in those days O-level.
John Agard
We had a Scottish teacher, Father Maxwell, because I went to Roman Catholic schools. He was a dear teacher to us. He went through the entire dictionary.
John Agard
Picking out words that we might encounter as we grow older. We had to copy them down from the blackboard, and I can still see them to this day. He will put words in a cluster, so imminent dash impending, imminent dash famous, imminent from within. So he turned us on to words, and he will read to us passages from P G Woodhouse, for example. And I certainly gravitated to the humour. And then in Sixth Form, we had a wonderful teacher, Michael Jokes, who is also a poet and playwright. And then a young VSO, fresh out of Oxford, degree in Russian literature, Brian Cotton. So they were inspiring.
John Agard
But at the same time, the the texts we were studying, with due respect, Wordsworth, Byron's, Child Harold, Keats you did have this sense as if poetry is a particularly elevated language. So when I left school and came across a very tiny penguin book,
John Agard
The Mersey sound with Roger McGough, Brian Patton, Adrian Henry.
John Agard
I was excited because I suddenly realized you can use the word football in a poem, you can use the word stadium, you can use the word lollipop.
Presenter
Let's hear some more music now, John Agard. Tell me about your second piece of music. What are we going to hear now?
John Agard
I'm Maliao Rodriguez, born in Lisbon. My mother, in fact, is Portuguese. My grandfather was from Madeira, because many Portuguese were brought to the Caribbean, Trinidad, Guyana. We had a wonderful tour, Grace and myself, a British Communist tour in Portugal. We went to Coimbra, Porto, Lisbon. But this the the piece of music takes you to all sorts of places, I think.
Speaker 4
June 20 August Mevano
Speaker 4
Our mother the father the Krishna can share.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
Presenter
Amalia Rodriguez and Rangweth Monamore. I wonder, John Agard, when you were a a little boy you were born in Georgetown in nineteen forty nine what were the books that were first read to you?
John Agard
Within school we did have a book called West Indian Reader, where you'll have a mixture of rhymes about Twirly and Twisty were two screws and goosey goosey gander.
John Agard
There was a famous calypso, in fact, by Sparrow, Dan is the man in the van.
John Agard
But growing up when I got about later primary, I was excited. I used to read Enid Blython, Famous Five, and I was hooked on the Hardy Boys series, the occasional Nancy Drew. I was never into someone like Biggles, because I was never so much into the action type books.
Presenter
And you were an only child.
John Agard
An only child. I think my mother was, um
John Agard
Quite protective.
John Agard
And I was um
John Agard
short, I was conscious at the time and I took a little time to spring up. So I did fall back on being, shall we say, a joker. I did have a big a bit of that in me.
Presenter
She was protective just'cause you were a little boy, or for other reasons, too.
John Agard
Well, I I think being an only child.
John Agard
My dad had already migrated to England, so I spent those whole teenage years, as well as my primary year, um, grew up with my mom. And uh the way a present day teenager might stand in front of the mirror and pretend to be a a rapposse.
John Agard
I would pretend to be a cricket commentator because I heard the voice of John Arlott.
John Agard
Commentating on cricket. I had no plans to be a poet, but when I hear John Arlott speaking of a batsman forward defensive, gingerly all along the carpet, back to the bowler,
John Agard
Without knowing it, I was responding to that power of language.
Presenter
John Agard, tell me then about your next piece of music. What are we going to hear? Your third disc of the morning.
John Agard
Oh, we were speaking about language rubbing off, and I remember around early seventies, one of our friends had migrated to Canada and returned home proudly with this collection of vinyl.
John Agard
He had things like Moody Blues, you know, Knights in White Satin. He had Janice Joplin, Jimi Hendrix. And when I heard the wind cries Mary, you'd almost expect the wind to cry s softly or the wind whispers softly. But here a woman's name uttered by the wind, I just felt there was an electricity there.
Speaker 4
After all the chance, open the boxes
Speaker 4
And the clowns were all going to be.
Speaker 4
You can hear happiness staggering on down the street.
Speaker 4
Footlights, rest in red
Speaker 4
The wind
Speaker 4
Whisper
Presenter
The Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Wind Cries Mary. John Agar, tell me about the time that that you were in sixth form and you were sitting an exam at this you mentioned you were at a mostly Jesuit college. And you were meant to be writing about Chaucer and Byron and Wordsworth and Keats and and you ended up doing what?
John Agard
Well, that was the time we were doing um the romantics.
John Agard
And I think it might have been I had to write something about Child Harold and Wordsworth. Mock exams. I turned over the paper.
John Agard
And I wrote a poem.
John Agard
began something like
John Agard
Imprisoned in my classroom cell, I chew my pen as printed words Come tumbling down before my eyes. Oh, words worth
John Agard
Why were you born?
John Agard
To rack my brains with songs of praise to lifelong nature and so on. And then my teacher, the same VSO I mentioned, Brian Cotton, said, Well, John, you wouldn't pass your A levels scribbling poems behind the exam paper. But having said that, I like this poem and then he said to us in the sixth form, Maybe we can start a magazine.
John Agard
And then he went on to say, And we can even invite the girls from the convent.
John Agard
And within a microsecond, the adolescent brain is thinking, hmm.
John Agard
It was just amazing what a teacher's inspiration can do to touch your life.
Presenter
So true. Time now for some music, John Agard. Tell us, what what have you chosen next?
John Agard
Well, speaking of teachers how they can touch your legs, when we had finished our A levels, this V S O teacher, he invites the boys for a drink.
John Agard
And don't forget, we are into Otis Redding, we are into Aretha Franklin, and he puts on on his little record player, says,'Come on, boys, listen to this He puts on some one by the name of Bob Dylan.
John Agard
Adolescent, we shake our heads. Sir, what sort of music is that? Never realizing in years to come that I would be so in love with the lyrics of Bob Dylan. In this particular version, the live concert Buddha Kan in Japan where he sings shelter from the storm. I think it's a marvellous synthesis of the personal, the political, the erotic, the spiritual. And since I'll be on a desert island, who knows? Grace might suddenly appear and say to me, I'll be your shelter from the storm.
Speaker 4
Was in another lifetime
Speaker 4
My love, toil, and blood
Speaker 4
Black Neeser was a virtue
Speaker 4
And the road was full of mud.
Speaker 4
I came in from the wilderness, a creature void of formal.
Speaker 4
Come in, she said, and I'll give ya
Speaker 4
Shelter from the store
Speaker 4
If I pass this way again
Speaker 4
You can rest assured.
Speaker 4
I'll always do my best for her. Only I get my word.
Presenter
Recorded at Buddhican in 1978. That was Bob Dylan and Shelter from the Storm. So, Grace Nicholls, your wife, the poet, you met in the late 60s in Georgetown when you were both writing for the Sunday Chronicle, and you decided to embark on this great journey together and to come to the UK. What was behind that?
John Agard
Well
John Agard
We were both writing for the same newspaper.
John Agard
And both Grace and myself had dreams of becoming a creative writers, a dream of living as a writer. And I think it's very crucial to realize
John Agard
and that within a colonial situation colonies were regarded as providers of raw material.
John Agard
your tea, your sugar
John Agard
There was no infrastructure of publishing.
John Agard
I did publish a couple of books, but I was self-published.
John Agard
So apart from the personal reason that my dad was already here.
John Agard
and I hadn't seen him for about sixteen or seventeen years, though we were in touch. There was that dream where you can send out a manuscript.
John Agard
You'll get a rejection, no doubt, but you'll send it out again, and then one day you'll get published and you can get something called royalties. That was the dream.
Presenter
And so you you say you hadn't seen your father for about sixteen years. When you came to Britain, did you see him? Did you begin to do this?
John Agard
Of course.
John Agard
Because that's where we stayed with my dad and um my stepmom. So we were very much in touch, but you know, um uh when you're a teenager you're not always thoughtful, so you might suddenly write a letter because you need a bit of cash and then your mom is keeping your dad in touch and say, Well, John is growing his hair
John Agard
call an Afro, and then another year or two later, oh John is still growing his hair, but now he's mixing with some people called hippies keeping him abreast of my progress.
Presenter
Your father did live to see your first book being published. Was that an important thing that he lived to see that? Because that's a great achievement for a writer.
John Agard
It was um about a little girl called Letty, um, letters for Letty.
John Agard
And uh my dad did see Grace and myself sending out manuscripts which were returned and now and then you get a little um
John Agard
Frisa, they say we enjoyed reading your stories, but regret we cannot make you an offer of publication. So when he was in hospital, um, that was in November of'seventy nine,
John Agard
And was
John Agard
gonna die really. He wasn't a very sort of over demonstrative man, but I was able to put a copy in his hand, and I believe that would be for him a very positive sign, as if these dreams we had of becoming writers
John Agard
were actually possible
Presenter
Tell me then, John Agard, about the next thing we're going to hear this morning. This is your fifth disc.
John Agard
Oh yes, around um back to 1970 and around that same period of working for The Chronicle.
John Agard
We used to get news releases from Reuters and you'll hear about the Vietnam War.
John Agard
This was just about that period where you're coming out of that electrifying period of black power, James Brown, I'm black and pro. And then you're moving into the hippie period, you're Jimi Hendrix. And then I managed to see Jimmy Cliff. And this simple ballad, this takes us right back to Vietnam.
Speaker 4
For my plan
Speaker 4
Fighting in the air now
Speaker 4
And this is what he had to say.
Speaker 4
Well
Speaker 4
That I'll be coming home soon.
Speaker 4
My time will be home sometime.
Presenter
That was Jimmy Cliff and Vietnam. I wonder if you could give us not a performance to day, but but read will you indulge me and read a little bit of one of your poems? I was thinking maybe of Listen, Mr Oxford Dawn. Will you read me a bit of that?
John Agard
Me not no Oxford Don.
John Agard
Me a simple immigrant from Clapham Common I didn't graduate, I immigrate.
John Agard
But listen, Mr Oxford Donne, I'm a man on the run, And a man on the run is a dangerous one. I have no gun, I have no knife, But mugging the Queen's English,
John Agard
Is the story of my life.
Presenter
That's a really
Presenter
When you first came?
Presenter
In nineteen seventy seven, what sort of welcome were you given as an immigrant?
John Agard
Well, even though I didn't experience.
John Agard
Any sort of um
John Agard
Thank God any uh physical
John Agard
Confrontation or or direct physical animosity.
John Agard
and loved love living in England and and feel that this for both myself and Grace had been an enriching experience. You can't be unaware that there were certain perceptions
John Agard
It might come out i i in a simple way, like, you know, where did you learn your English from? And then I realized that we had known more about English history,
John Agard
than many um people themselves who who were English. But the way I see it
John Agard
is that that word, shall we say, racism, one can invi absorb it to the point where you make of yourself a victim.
Presenter
Being something of an outsider for any writer, do you think that's a positive thing to be? Does it innate does that?
Presenter
That clarity that distance gives you mean that the writing is therefore somehow sharpened and improved.
John Agard
Oh, it was good. It isn't a position you can choose.
John Agard
the way, for example, we didn't choose to be speaking English. It was thrust upon us in in the way of speaking. But now you've got that richness of the English language and you've got the richness of Caribbean Creole.
John Agard
If it's thrust upon you, you should embrace it.
Presenter
Music next, John Agard, tell me about this. This uh this is your sixth.
John Agard
Oh, um going back to that period, that so-called um hippie period.
John Agard
And uh this friend who brought back this collection of vinyl, he played Jetro Tull. I thought that was a man's name, and I liked the sound of that breevy flute.
John Agard
but also the texture of the voice. And it really brings back that period of possibility and innocence when you think you are eternal.
Speaker 4
Once it seemed there would always be A time for every thing.
Speaker 4
Ages passed, I knew at last my life had never failed.
Speaker 4
I've been missing what time could bring
Presenter
That was Jethro Tull and A Time for Everything. You have three daughters, John Agard. Yes. A lot of us parents, you know, we sit down with our kids, not just with books, but if we're feeling very brave and adventurous, with books of poetry, and we say, let's have a little read at this. How did your girls take to poetry? Did they enjoy reading their mum and dad's works? Do they enjoy it?
John Agard
Oh, well, th they all at at some point wrote poems. So, um L Leslie, um Jansen and um Clara wrote. But I think uh maybe because of the fact that Grace and myself are both poets, I think they peed into language but in a different dimension. So for example, um Leslie has an interest in writing scripts. Jansen she sticks with poetry and um stories. And the youngest one, Clero, was quite intrigued by travel writing because she likes travelling to places. So the world has rubbed off.
Speaker 1
Yeah.
John Agard
but not necessarily how they channel the word.
Presenter
Um I mentioned in the introduction, John Agar, that people would be foolish if they bracketed you as a member of the establishment.
Presenter
Maybe I want to rethink that, actually, because maybe when you win the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, as you did in 2012, you automatically become that. What do you think?
John Agard
Well, I don't see myself in that light. I can I can respect previous decisions that have been made, say, by a poet, to refuse an MBE or an OBE because of that baggage of the word empire.
John Agard
But bearing in mind that this particular medal
John Agard
is an appreciation of your contribution and your oeuvre as a poet.
John Agard
You can equally look at it to reject that would be ungracious because I think young people in this country, white and black, this is not a black thing, this is a human thing.
John Agard
They need to be motivated by people who channel the word with positive energy, and I'm always intrigued at sports people.
John Agard
Boxers, cricketers, athletes, they have no angst in accepting awards.
John Agard
you know, Sir Garfield Sobers, Frank Worrell, Sir Vivian Richards. And if we allow only the physical sports people to be at ease with awards, where are their models?
John Agard
who celebrate language that can energize the soul. Where are the beacons that give them a positive hope that poetry
John Agard
is also something worthy of being honoured, and for that reason I had no qualms.
John Agard
And I felt very honoured and I felt very touched to be in the company of many great poets who who was granted that.
Presenter
Let's have some more music. Tell me about your seventh, then.
John Agard
Emily Sande
John Agard
Her truck, read all about it. I think she's a beacon of what I would like to consider the future British generation.
John Agard
Mixed heritage.
John Agard
A young woman who
John Agard
has been committed to education and neuroscientists.
John Agard
Reminding us that as young people they have a voice.
John Agard
Hearts as loud as a lion, why let your voice be tamed? So I think this is for my three daughters and the future Britain, where they must not feel themselves marginalized, regardless of their class or their role.
Speaker 4
Cause I wanna see
Speaker 4
I wanna shout.
Speaker 4
I wanna scream till the worms dry out.
Speaker 4
Put it in all of the papers. I'm not afraid.
Speaker 1
Put it in on.
Speaker 1
Ah
Speaker 4
Can read all about it, read all about it, at all.
Presenter
That was Emily Sandy and Read All About It. I'm going to cast you away now, John Agart, as you know. You're going to this uh desert island all by yourself. I'm wondering what will inspire you. Do you think you know, you you said to me earlier this morning that it could be just a a headline misread on the corner of a newspaper, but there as you sit on the desert island, what's it going to be? Is it going to be the sound of the sea lapping? Is it going to be the flora and fauna around you?
John Agard
Well, maybe the silence. Maybe the silence, because um I am not your beach type of person. If I when I go th if I travel, I love cities. I if I come to London, I want to be in the middle of London, I want to go round the West End, Soho. If I'm in Amsterdam, I want to chill out, you know. So, um uh I suppose suddenly confronted with that um engulfing silence, I might get to chew into the noises of birds and that that might inspire something.
Presenter
We shall have to wait and see, I guess. Let's hear your final one for this morning, then. What do we do?
John Agard
Well, um I like to think of the word Krikursty desert island as a deserted island as opposed to just sand. Lot of foliage, maybe, you know, a mango tree within easy reach, bursting bananas uh a stone's throw away. And I'll need something to um bring that smile to my face.
Presenter
Right.
John Agard
And I I mean choosing air tracks that was a very difficult task. How can I leave out um Bob Marley? How can I leave out um Leonard Cohen?
John Agard
and all the great Calypsonians, Sparrow and Lord Kitchener, I ended up choosing this one, my Lord Invader.
John Agard
A Calypsonian going back to the thirties. I think this is a superb little piece of mischief where the s the Calypsonian takes on the persona of a not very quick witted person, despite obvious amateur overtures from a lady.
John Agard
Uh
Speaker 1
Myself and Michael was lying in bed.
Speaker 1
She took a comb and started to scratch my head Me and my chick was lying in bed She took a comb and started to scratch my head In a romantic way she then held me tight She held on to my top lip and give me a bite I asked the darling why you picked me She said you fool, you don't need glasses to see
John Agard
I have
Presenter
Lord Invader, you don't need glasses to see. So, John Agard, the moment has come when I give you the books. You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you will get to take one other book to this island. What's yours gonna be?
John Agard
Well, again, um after long thought, I decided um
John Agard
A little book by Thomas Morton, because I feel on that island Thomas Morton will touch many sides of me. Known to be a a monk, in the book of ours it's laid out almost like the liturgy. You can go through the daytime, the psalms, canticles, you're getting meditation, you're getting reflection, you're getting insight. I mean he had this wonderful line where he speaks about each person being full of paradise.
John Agard
For some reason that touches me. I mean, you take, for example, when in one of his hymns in this book, Thomas Merton says When psalms surprise me with their music and antiphons turn to rum, the spirit sings. I mean I love the idea of antiphons turning to rum. So on a desert island, even if I haven't got any rum, I can imagine the bird noises and the the canticles of the air turning to rum, preferably El Dorado.
Presenter
So you're not going to take some rum as your luxury then,'cause that's my next question. What is your luxury going to be?
John Agard
Well, well, well, well, well.
John Agard
Rum comes to mind, um my bamboo flute.
John Agard
But if I want to sit back and relax and enjoy the silence and look at the waves, since I wouldn't be seeing any cafes, no libraries, no pubs on Desert Island, I think I will need that roll up.
John Agard
of organic tobacco, if you don't mind.
Presenter
I don't mind at all.
John Agard
And um and I don't suppose in on a desert island there will be what you call a no smoking zone and a smoking zone, so I can walk around the island and relax. You can definitely do that and hope for the best.
Presenter
Who knows?
Presenter
You can definitely do that. So finally then, if I was to ask you to choose just one of these eight discs to save, which one disc would you save from the water?
Speaker 4
So finally then
John Agard
Shelter from the storm.
Presenter
It's yours. John Agard, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.
John Agard
Thank you very much for having me.
Presenter
You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio4.
Presenter asks
You met Grace Nicholls, your wife, in the late 60s in Georgetown when you were both writing for the Sunday Chronicle, and you decided to embark on this great journey together and to come to the UK. What was behind that?
We were both writing for the same newspaper. And both Grace and myself had dreams of becoming a creative writers, a dream of living as a writer. … Apart from the personal reason that my dad was already here, and I hadn't seen him for about sixteen or seventeen years … there was that dream where you can send out a manuscript. You'll get a rejection, no doubt, but you'll send it out again, and then one day you'll get published and you can get something called royalties. That was the dream.
Presenter asks
When you first came in 1977, what sort of welcome were you given as an immigrant?
Well, even though I didn't experience any sort of um Thank God any uh physical confrontation or or direct physical animosity … you can't be unaware that there were certain perceptions. It might come out i i in a simple way, like, you know, where did you learn your English from? … But the way I see it is that that word, shall we say, racism, one can invi absorb it to the point where you make of yourself a victim.
Presenter asks
Maybe when you win the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, as you did in 2012, you automatically become a member of the establishment. What do you think?
I don't see myself in that light. I can I can respect previous decisions that have been made, say, by a poet, to refuse an MBE or an OBE because of that baggage of the word empire. But bearing in mind that this particular medal is an appreciation of your contribution and your oeuvre as a poet. … I think young people in this country, white and black … they need to be motivated by people who channel the word with positive energy … and for that reason I had no qualms.
Presenter asks
You get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you will get to take one other book to this island. What's yours going to be?
Well, after long thought, I decided um a little book by Thomas Morton, because I feel on that island Thomas Morton will touch many sides of me. … He had this wonderful line where he speaks about each person being full of paradise. … Thomas Merton says When psalms surprise me with their music and antiphons turn to rum, the spirit sings. I mean I love the idea of antiphons turning to rum. So on a desert island, even if I haven't got any rum, I can imagine the bird noises and the canticles of the air turning to rum, preferably El Dorado.
“Poetry, um, language in orbit. Because a poet is using the same number of um letters of the alphabet as any other human being … but that magical moment when you happen to put the right words in the right order can trigger off a verbal chemistry that can touch your depths.”
“I had no plans to be a poet, but when I hear John Arlott speaking of a batsman forward defensive, gingerly all along the carpet, back to the bowler, without knowing it, I was responding to that power of language.”
“Imprisoned in my classroom cell, I chew my pen as printed words Come tumbling down before my eyes. Oh, words worth Why were you born? To rack my brains with songs of praise to lifelong nature … I wrote a poem.”
“Me not no Oxford Don. Me a simple immigrant from Clapham Common I didn't graduate, I immigrate. But listen, Mr Oxford Donne, I'm a man on the run, And a man on the run is a dangerous one. I have no gun, I have no knife, But mugging the Queen's English, Is the story of my life.”
“Oh, it was good. It isn't a position you can choose. … We didn't choose to be speaking English. It was thrust upon us in in the way of speaking. But now you've got that richness of the English language and you've got the richness of Caribbean Creole. If it's thrust upon you, you should embrace it.”
“A little book by Thomas Morton … he had this wonderful line where he speaks about each person being full of paradise. For some reason that touches me. I mean, you take, for example, when in one of his hymns in this book, Thomas Merton says When psalms surprise me with their music and antiphons turn to rum, the spirit sings. I mean I love the idea of antiphons turning to rum.”