Weblines

Anansi, the trickster god and Spiderhero of West African folktales, is the spinning voice at the hub of John Agard's Come Down Nansi. Here the eight-legged one pits wits against larger creatures, and in the guise of uncle and auntie, leaves the ceiling to engage with mythic beginnings, transatlantic trade, migration and metropolitan life. Along the way Anansi goes walkies with eight dogs in Hyde Park, cops the lead role in Swan Lake and reshuffles the books of Prospero.

With Man to Pan and Limbo Dancer in Dark Glasses, this new cycle forms an orchestrated trilogy, Weblines, where Agard explores what he sees as three powerful Caribbean metaphors of transfiguration: the steeldrum (spider-pan with its webbed concave belly), the limbo dancer, as spider-limbed god spinning cosmic bridges; and Anansi, the transforming Spider, weaving old continents in mythopoetic webs.

'One of the most eloquent contemporary poets . . . From the Devil's Pulpit is very much a tour de force, knowing, rich in literary and cultural allusion, yet as direct as a voice in the bus queue'

– Helen Dunmore, Observer