Who Am I
Dean Parkin was born in 1969 and left school at the age of sixteen to work at a printer’s and then in a bookshop. He currently divides his time between The Poetry Trust and his work as a freelance poet and since March 2007 has been poet-in-residence on the Roy Waller Show on BBC Radio Norfolk, appearing once a month to help demystify poetry.
In September 2008 he won an Escalator Live Literature Award to develop a one man show Ducks, Trains & Other Tracks, working towards an event at the Norfolk & Norwich Festival in May 2009. He was also awarded an Arts Council England Grants for the Arts Award to develop the show further during 2009/10.
An experienced performer, he is host of the Short Cuts Cabaret, one of many ongoing collaborations with with jazz pianist Maurice Horhut. Dean has also given many readings across the UK and in the US, including StAnza Poetry Festival, the Dodge Poetry Festival, Poetry at Georgia Tech (Atlanta), Cambridge WordFest, The Wondermentalist Cabaret (Devon), The Troubadour (London) and also in colleges, schools and pubs.
He has run workshops in prisons, schools and on a NATO base in Germany, for Spread the Word in London, and is a regular tutor on schools courses for the Arvon Foundation. In 2009 he has been working in collaboration with London Sinfonietta on the Surf N Turf Project in two schools in Suffolk, generating words and poems to be set to music.
A Jerwood/Arvon Young Poet in 2003, his poems have appeared in many magazines including The North, Poetry Review, Smiths Knoll and The Forward Anthology. He’s also been published in the US magazines Greensbro Review and Washington Square. His first pamphlet, Irresistible to Women (2003) was followed by Just Our Luck (2008) - both published by The Garlic Press.
When he was a much younger man he entirely made up a local legend (whilst editing a book of local tales and folklore) which can now be found in the Penguin Book of British Myth & Legend. He is also probably the first poet to appear on television reading a poem on the loo (see the Youtube clip).
