THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED. It will be rescheduled for summer 2016. Please contact the Nottingham Lakeside Arts box office on the number below for more information.

Grace Nichols and John Agard visit Nottingham Lakeside Arts as part of the Nottingham Poetry Festival 2015.

Tickets £10, £8 concessions, £5 UoN students. To book, visit the Nottingham Lakeside Arts website or phone the Box Office on 0115 846 7777.

Grace Nichols has published many books for both adults and children. Born in Guyana, she emigrated to Britain in 1977. Her first collection I is a Long-Memoried Woman was awarded the 1983 Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Her other collections include The Fat Black Woman’s Poems (Virago), Sunris which won the Guyana Poetry Prize and Startling the Flying Fish all by Virago, who also published her first novel; Whole of a Morning Sky. She was poet in residence at Tate Gallery, London 1999-2000. Among her popular children’s books are Picasso, I Want My Face Back and I Have Crossed An Ocean (selected poems), both published by Bloodaxe Books. Cosmic Disco, her new book for young people, was published by Frances-Lincoln in 2013. She received a Cholmondeley Award for her work in 2001 and more recently, an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Hull. Grace Nichols is among the poets on the current GCSE syllabus and is fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

John Agard is one of the most exciting poets writing in the English language, and in 2013 he was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. His highly acclaimed The Young Inferno (Frances Lincoln) fires Dante into the 21st Century in a red-hot retelling and Bloodaxe publish his poetry for adults including such classics as Listen Mr Oxford Don and The Palm Tree King. Faber are to publish a tender picture book story – Come All You Little Persons.

Alongside poetry, he has written verse plays and librettos for venues including Little Angel Theatre and the Glyndebourne Festival. He has been a writer-in-residence at the BBC, the South Bank and the National Maritime Museum. He tours widely giving performances and talking to school children studying his poetry for GCSE.

John was born in Guyana and lives with his wife, poet Grace Nichols, and family in Lewes. Winner of many awards, including the Queen’s Gold Medal Award for Poetry, the Smarties Award, the Paul Hamlyn Award, the Cholmondeley Award, the Casa de las Americas Poetry Award, the Guyana prize and the CLPE Award.