Playing the Ghost of Maimonides
Published on 23. June 2016
Book
Paperback/Softback
64 pages
978-1-78037-309-6 (ISBN)
Description
John Agard has been broadening the canvas of British poetry for the past 40 years with his mischievous, satirical fables which overturn all our expectations. In this new collection, he puts on the mask of Moses Maimonides (aka the Rambam), the Medieval Jewish rabbi and physician who wrote his Guide of the Perplexed in Arabic at a time when Judaism, Islam and Christianity cross-fertilised each other in Moorish Spain. Now the ghost of Maimonides returns to the contemporary world, no less perplexed, and trailed by the figure of the Jester, whose wise fool musings shadow Maimonides' discourses on a range of subjects from sectarian fanaticism to God's incorporeal lack of taste buds. In Playing the Ghost of Maimonides, the rabbinical, the parabolical, the nonsensical, are symphonically interwoven in a thought-provoking romp of metaphysical shapeshifting that resonates with the current climate of extremism.
Reviews / Votes
'John Agard's first book since he finally won the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry is typically cosmopolitan, with one eye on the past and the other on the present...readers - especially schoolteachers and their pupils - tend to love his work... This thought-provoking, puckish, tender book will not disappoint them.' - Rory Waterman, Times Literary Supplement, on Travel Light Travel DarkMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Tyne and Wear
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 150 mm
Width: 234 mm
Thickness: 8 mm
Weight
112 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78037-309-6 (9781780373096)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
John Agard
Playing the Ghost of Maimonides
E-Book
06/2016
Bloodaxe Books Ltd
€9.99
Available for download
Person
Poet, performer, anthologist, John Agard was born in Guyana and came to Britain in 1977. His many books include eight from Bloodaxe, From the Devil's Pulpit (1997), Weblines (2000), We Brits (2006), Alternative Anthem: Selected Poems (2009), Clever Backbone (2009), Travel Light Travel Dark (2013), Playing the Ghost of Maimonides (2016) and The Coming of the Little Green Man (2018). He is the winner of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry for 2012, presented to him by The Queen on 12 March 2013. He won the Casa de las Americas Prize in 1982, a Paul Hamlyn Award in 1997, and a Cholmondeley Award in 2004. We Brits was shortlisted for the 2007 Decibel Writer of the Year Award, and he has won the Guyana Prize twice, for his From the Devil's Pulpit and Weblines. The Coming of the Little Green Man is a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. He lives with the poet Grace Nichols and family in Sussex; they received the CLPE Poetry Award 2003 for their children's anthology Under the Moon and Over the Sea (Walker Books).