Tom Pickard was born in 1946 in Newcastle upon Tyne and educated in Blakelaw, where he gained a last at Cowgate Secondary Modern. He has cobbled together a career ever since, between periods as a welfare claimant, as a writer, labourer, bookdealer, curator, dyker, driver, performer, librettist, oral historian, and producer-director of film and radio documentaries. A lifelong counter-culture figure, in 1964, aged eighteen, Pickard cofounded Morden Tower, a live poetry venue in Newcastle, hosting poets such as Allen Ginsberg, Robert Creeley, and Basil Bunting. In 1973 he moved to London, where he occasionally worked as a market trader and writer/director of radio, film and television documentaries, including We Make Ships (1988) and The Shadow and the Substance (1994). Pickard has collaborated throughout his career with musicians, film-makers and poets. He is the recipient of a Gold Medal from the New York International Film and TV Festival, and the 2011 Bess Hokin Prize for poetry. His publications include High on the Walls (1968), Guttersnipe (1971), fuckwind (1999), The Dark Months of May (2004), Ballad of Jamie Allan (2007) and More Pricks Than Prizes (2010).
