James Carter, along with his guitar Keith, has to be one of the liveliest and quirkiest children’s poets around. He is a regular visitor to primary schools all over the UK, where he performs poems about garden sheds, moths, chocolate, Goldilocks - and of course electric guitars!

His poetry has been included in over 40 anthologies and won widespread critical acclaim. His recent book, Cars, Stars and Electric Guitars is a hugely fun collection of shape poems and haikus, written for 7-11 year olds. James’ poetry is incredibly varied, and his book includes: shape poetry; free verse; list poems; acrostics; haikus and rhyming verse. On school visits, he does poetry/music performances for reception upwards, and workshops for years 2-6.

James’ poem ‘The Dark’ won the Raymond Wilson Poetry Prize in 2001 and was read out on CBBC (BBC2) in 2005, where it featured as ’scarey poem of the week’. His books include a Yr 1/2 reader ‘Around the World’ (Harper Collins Big Cat Series) and ‘Time Travelling Underpants’ (collection for 7-11 year olds - Macmillan - July 2007).

James’ enthusiasm for writing has led him to write several teacher’s guides including Creating Writers and Rap it Up, as well as compiling Talking Books, a collection of in-depth interviews with children’s authors including Jacqueline Wilson, Gillian Cross and Philip Pullman. He also lectures in creative writing and children’s literature at the University of Reading, and has degrees in primary education (B.Ed, Hons) and children’s literature (MA).

As a child
James was born at the age of zero. At the age of three, he started staring at the window and daydreaming. At the age of five, he discovered a small beat combo called The Beatles. At the age of seven, he discovered the delights of Tintin books. At fifteen, he started playing the electric guitar, writing songs and playing in horribly noisy heavy rock groups. Over the years, the groups became slightly less heavy, noisy and horrible. Honestly.
As an adult
After fifteen years of writing, performing and recording music (whilst doing a series of jobs from job centre interviews to recruitment consultant), James went off to Reading University to do a B.Ed degree in primary education. He stayed on at Reading and did an MA in children’s literature. Over the last ten years, James has worked in education, lectured at Reading University in creative writing and children’s literature and has written five creative writing books for teachers. He lives in south Oxfordshire with his wife and two daughters.
As an artist
James visits schools all over the UK to give poetry/music performances and workshops. Says James: “I never set out to be a poet. I wrote songs/music for about fifteen years and when I started working in education, I found myself writing poems - and wow! People published all of them! I haven’t stopped since. I love writing poems, from raps to Haikus, playful poems about crisps or yappy dogs, to poems about feeling insecure or the nature of time. On one level, I don’t care what a poem is about - I’m more interested in the textures, rhythms and musicality of the words. Why write for children? Because I think I can be more quirky and playful writing for a young audience. I write for two distinct age groups - action type rhymes for three to five year olds, and a range of poems for six to eleven year olds. And performing poetry is a new treat for me; bringing poems to life with music, actions, climbing over furniture and asking children to join in with the chorus. I love it!” James was also a major contributor to the critically-acclaimed new CBeebies series, Poetry Pie, broadcast Feb/March ‘09 and still available at the CBeebies website. He was commissioned to write 6 new poems for the series and he co-wrote three poems with Primary schools.

Things you didn’t know about James Carter
1. James is woken up by a strange cat called Alice.
2. James was called “Dormouse” by his teacher at school because he daydreamed the whole time.
3. He’s left-handed.
4. His favourite crisps are cheese and onion. Not salt and vinegar. NO.
5. James played on a single that reached No. 3 in the Welsh heavy metal charts.
6. His guitar is called Keith.
7. His favourite music is by XTC, Tom Waits, the Beatles, Ben Webster and J. S. Bach.
8. His favourite poems are “Horace” by Terry Jones and anything by Dylan Thomas.
9. Jacqueline Wilson dedicated her book Jimmy Jelly to James’s daughter, Lauren.
10. James is the luckiest man on the planet and loves his wife and two daughters to bits.

James’ Books

Cars, Stars, Electric Guitars

Rummage around inside James Carter’s head and find Darren the dolphin-shaped balloon; a list of things to ask Noah; two poems about crisps; plenty of shape poems; a world record attempt; and lots, lots more, in this remarkable, funny and highly original poetry collection
Just Imagine: Creative Ideas for Writing

Aimed at Key Stages 2 and 3, “Just Imagine” presents a wide range of resources as stimulus material for creative writing - from text by popular children’s authors to photographs, illustrations and paintings as well as instrumental music and soundscapes. The book is accompanied by a CD, which features instrumental tracks and soundscapes of different styles, recorded by James Carter and Mark Hawkins. This book is a useful resource for inspiring a very wide range of creative and functional writing.
Page to Stage: Writing and Performing Poetry in Primary Schools

This is a book/CD for Primary teachers (KS1 & 2). The first part offers a wealth of poetry writing workshops for use in and out of the Literacy Hour; there are tips from many top children’s poets on crafting and drafting poems - and advice on writing all forms of poetry from rhyming and free verse to haikus to kennings and raps; much time is spent covering rhythm and rhyme, imagery and exploring expressive language. The second part offers an anthology of modern and traditional poems and gives details on how to run poetry performance (ie speaking & listening) workshops; along with this second part is a CD of performance poetry - 4 poems by James and 5 by an Oxfordshire Primary school. The emphasis throughout Page to Stage is very much on creativity.

WILD! - rhymes that road (Macmillan ‘09) - an anthology of animal poems with Graham Denton.

GREETINGS, EARTHLINGS! - space poems - by James Carter and Brian Moses (Macmillan, July ‘09) a new collection of utterly cosmic poems to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moonlanding. Sponsored by The Science Museum.

ORANGE SILVER SAUSAGE - poems without rhymes - compiled by James Carter and Graham Denton (Walker Books, Oct ‘09) - 50 poems without rhymes, from American and British poets, from Zephaniah to Agard.
Talking Books: Children’s Authors Talk About the Craft, Creativity and Process of Writing

Talking Books is a collection of interviews with some of the most important and influential of comtemporary children’s writers including: Neil Ardley, Ian Beck, Helen Cresswell, Gillian Cross, Terry Deary, Berlie Doherty, Alan Durant, Brian Moses, Philip Pullman, Celia Rees, Norman Silver, Jacqueline Wilson, and Benjamin Zephaniah.

These writers talk about the joys and challenges, rewards and demands of the craft, creativity and process of writing for children. A fascinating insight into writers’ minds, the book will appeal to anyone with an interest in children’s books and in helping children make the most of them.

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