Her first collection, I is a Long Memoried Woman (1983) won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. Other collections (Virago) include The Fat Black Woman’s Poems (1984), Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Woman (1989), Sunrise (1996), winner of the Guyana Prize, and Startling the Flying Fish (2006). Her poetry books for younger readers, include Come on into My Tropical Garden (1988), Give Yourself a Hug (1994), Everybody Got a Gift (2005) and Cosmic Disco (2013). She has published four books with Bloodaxe, Picasso, I Want My Face Back (2009), I Have Crossed an Ocean: Selected Poems (2010), The Insomnia Poems (2017), and Passport to Here and There (2020), a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation. Born in Guyana, she lives in Sussex with the poet John Agard and their family.