John Row (born 1947) is an English storyteller and

public speaker Public speaking, also called oratory or oration, has traditionally meant the act of speaking face to face to a live audience. Today it includes any form of speaking (formally and informally) to an audience, including pre-recorded speech deliver ...

with roots in

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...

, UK.

Life

John Row tours schools around the world and other institutions such as prisons. He has been a presence in

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

where he has performed in detention centres for the young inmates. He was the first storyteller in residence in a British prison. He is a regular performer at festivals throughout the U.K. He has a weekly radio show on

Ipswich Community Radio Ipswich Community Radio (ICR FM) is a community radio station in Ipswich, Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Se ...

one of the first community radio stations in the county which now has a full-time licence. He is a regular contributor to 'On Track' a magazine for rail travellers in the Southern Region. Touring with singer/songwriter Paddy Stratton he is one half of 'Serious Times', a music and poetry show. Performing in the 1960s he joined up with Graham Flight from the Canterbury band 'Wild Flowers' which spawned both 'Soft Machine' and 'Caravan'. In the 1970s he toured with

Nick Toczek Nick Toczek (born 20 September 1950; Shipley, England) is a British writer and performer working variously as poet, journalist, magician, vocalist, lyricist and radio broadcaster. He was raised in Bradford and then took a degree in Industrial ...

in 'Stereo Graffiti' and in the 1980s and early 1990s with 'Sound Proposition' an anarchic combination of free form jazz, funk and poetry which toured East Germany in the last weeks of its existence. Throughout the late 1990s and the first half of the 2000s (decade) he concentrated on storytelling apart from on his visits to Texas where he appeared at the Austin International Poetry Festival. His book of poems for children ' The Pong Machine' was published in 1999. He also participated in a workshop for children in Algeria in September 2012, a workshop held by the British Council in Algiers, alongside that was a workshop for English teachers and how to teach English through storytelling.

External links

John Row, Storyteller

John Row School Visits

References

1947 births Living people English male poets {{UK-poet-stub