Growing up in the small post-industrial mining town of Pontypool in south Wales, Alex Wharton was transported to other worlds. As a child he would absorb technicolour comics and lose himself in thick general knowledge books, studying maps and exploring global cultures. As a teen, he became a rap afcionado, obsessively studying the lyrics of Outkast, Lauryn Hill and Talib Kweli.
“That was my self-directed method of finding language I enjoyed,” he says. “I usually say I didn’t start reading poetry until I was an adult. But, looking back to those lyrics, I very much was doing so as a teenager.”
Wharton is currently the Children’s Laureate for Wales and takes his poetry to libraries, school classrooms and events all over the UK. So, it makes perfect sense that the foundations for his arresting, engaging and entertaining stories for kids and adults – spanning everything from tales of kingfishers to jelly beans – lie in the combination of words and rhythm he heard on those formative CDs.
