John Gibbens

was born in Cheshire, grew up in West Germany and West Cumbria, and lives in London, where he has been a copy typist, secretary, typesetter, receptionist, playwright, actor, jazz doorman, printmaker, dogwalker and journalist. He was deputy editor of The Oldie for two years, and now works in ‘Fleet Street’ as a subeditor. At 22, he won the Society of Authors’ Eric Gregory Award for young poets. His poems have been published in anthologies devoted to Elvis Presley, Edward Thomas, Bob Dylan, nuclear war and the Beatles.

Covenant, a set of one-act plays which he wrote, produced and acted in, was presented at the Finborough Theatre in London in 1989, with Francesca Howell as Mary Magdalen, movement by Rosemary Lee and stage deisgn by Emma Withers. Play, the first album of his music with The Children, was released in 1999, featuring divers virtuosi such as jazz trombonists Annie Whitehead and Gail Brand, pianist Veryan Weston and bassist Julia Doyle, guitar+electronics player Alfredo Genovesi and folk and classical violinist Anne Wood. A seven-piece line-up of The Children played the Bongo Club in the 1999 Edinburgh Festival. Two more albums by The Children appeared in 2002, Come Aboard and Rockingham Street, followed by two volumes of Songs from the Red Notebook and Love Walk in 2003 (revised edition, 2005); and Equals in 2006.

John Gibbens read, performed and ran a songwriting workshop in the poet’s birthplace as part of the Dylan Thomas Celebration 2000, and he returned for the 2002 Celebration to lecture on the connection betwen the Dylans, Bob and Thomas (see We Walk the Line). Since 2001 John Gibbens has also been performing with Armorel Weston and the poet and musician David Miller in The Mind Shop.

At 5 Cwmdonkin Drive (photograph by Bernard Mitchell)

 

The Touched Press booklet Man’s laughter / Simples (1999) was followed in 2000 by Collected Poems and in 2001 by The Nightingale’s Code: a poetic study of Bob Dylan. In 2004 he began to publish the Inkjet Books.

In 2005, John Gibbens was joint winner of the Southwark Poets of the Year competition.

 

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