Pickard, Tom

(1946- )

   One of the British poetry Revivalists, he was born in Gateshead, Newcastle upon Tyne. On leaving school at 14 he soon made his name as one of the emerging band of British "underground" poets, inspired by the Beat poetry coming out of America. From 1963 to 1972 Pickard ran the Morden Tower Book Room, Newcastle upon Tyne, where he organized a series of readings by British and American modernist tradition poets. Moving to London in 1973, he started writing radio and documentary film scripts. His film credits include Jarrow March (1976), We Make Ships (1988), Birmingham is What I Think With (1991) and The Shadow and the Substance (1994). He directed the last three of these films. In 1974, his television play Squire was broadcast by the BBC. Some of his poetry publications: High on the Walls, 1968. The Order of Chance, 1971. Hero Dust: New and Selected Poems, 1979. Hole in the Wall: New and Selected Poems, 2002. Some of his poems: "A History Lesson from My Son on Hadrian's Wall," "Dawn Raid on an Orchard," "Détente," "Gypsy Music in Krakow," "The Decadent Voyeurs."

   Sources: Anthology of Twentieth-Century British and Irish Poetry. Keith Tuma, ed. Oxford University Press, 2001. Biography of Tom Pickard: Woodland Pattern Book Centre (http://www.woodlandpattern.org/poems/tom_pickard01.shtml). I Have No Gun But I Can Spit: An Anthology of Satirical and Abusive Verse. Kenneth Baker, ed. Faber and Faber, 1980. Other: British and Irish Poetry since 1970. Richard Caddel and Peter Quartermain, ed. Wesleyan University Press, 1999. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The New British Poetry, 1968-88. Gillian Allnutt, Fred D'Aguiar and Ken Edwards, eds. Grafton Books, 1989. The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000. Tom Pickard interview published March 2002 (http://www.lindisfarne.de/interviews/ivtp0203.htm). Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia).