Hello. I must be the only Poet in Residence of Bristol City football club who will ever live in Sedgeford - where Melanie, Emma and I have been rooted for life since 1986 - but I am not the only supporter within shouting distance of Cole Green. Nor am I the first Celt to have lived in Norfolk. This is Boudicca country and she is a potent muse. The following is from Boudicca, Britain's Dreaming


Why do I sing for you, victory queen
waling flint-toothed fields with a sharp spade
at the roots of a tongue that gets lost in translation,
drinking nettle wine in a ditch of roman nettles
from a freshly exhumed Celtic love cup....?"

'Waling' is not a typo - it is a verb from coalmining, meaning to sort through slag for the good stuff, and I hope everyone gets my archaeological pun on SHARP, the archaeologists doing something similar from their base opposite Poetry HQ here in Cole Green. It's great see these down to earth academics flocking here to bone up on the Saxons every summer. You can find the rest of the poem in 'Britain's Dreaming' which shows "a punk rock sensibility, a feel for history and a healthy appetite for Urdu love poetry..." (The New Times).
I retired from teaching in 2007 to write full time and have published a comic novel about teaching ('Very very funny and poignant' Ian Whitwham) and a seventh poetry collection since, with another novel on the way. My current project is a Bardic storytelling combined arts show called One Man and His Masks, It uses masks, props, music and movement to tell two great British stories in verse: 'Boudicca; Britain's Dreaming' and 'Arthur; Britain's Making'. This will tour 2010-2012 and spend three weeks at the Edinburgh fringe in 2011. My schooldays poetry show, Marked for Life, has been described as "A riotously funny satire." Coming Home (1991) "gives us memorable individual poems within a marvellous framework..." (Eastern Daily Press). "Exile In His Own Country" (the greatest hits!) is the best general introduction.

To book One Man and His Masks or to find out more about Gareth's work, and prices of books and CDs visit


Gareth's World-wide Scrapbook at www.garethcalway.co.uk