ArtHouse Jersey commissions celebrated UK poet and children's author A.F.Harrold for special reading for the Island's children

ArtHouse Jersey is delighted to announce a very special commission with renowned children’s author and poet A.F. Harrold to read a selection of poetry from his bestselling ‘The Book of Not Entirely Useful Advice’.

Complete with a personal message for Jersey’s children, ArtHouse Jersey will be offering this content which is now available on their digital platform, to those teaching English right across the Island.A.F. Harrold is an English poet who writes and performs for adults and children, in cabaret and in schools, in bars and in basements, in fields and indoors. He was Glastonbury Festival Website's Poet-In-Residence in 2008, and Poet-In-Residence at Cheltenham Literature Festival in 2010. He won the Cheltenham All Stars Slam Championship in 2007 and has had his work on BBC Radio 4 and Radio 3, and now he is a star guest of ArtHouse Jersey Presents.

No stranger to the Island, AF Harrold last performed here for the Jersey Festival of Words in 2016. He proved an instant hit, with six hundred children spellbound at the Jersey Opera House. He is also a renowned children’s author and by his own admission 'does things that aren't entirely normal', which may well bolster his appeal to the younger person.Arthouse Jersey Programme Manager, Pippa Le Quesne, commissioned Harrold to create this poetry video for children. She said ‘I knew it would be weird and wonderful (he starts off by cutting his hair at the beginning of the film) and hugely enjoyable for primary school kids, and a gift to their teachers. If anyone can get children to love poetry and show that it's fun and doesn't have to be boring and stuffy, it's him. Here he reads from his collection The Book of Not Entirely Useful Advice, which is suitably off-the-wall, but also directly addresses the kids in Jersey and speaks about his love of the Island’.