When We Wake We Think We're Whalers from Eden

In a recent review of And Then We Saw the Daughter of the Minotaur (The Black Light Engine Room 2010) Kathleen Jones notes "English poetry is blessed with fantastic poets whose work never makes the headlines. Bob Beagrie is one of them. His work has been translated into ten languages, yet his name is still less well known in the UK than it should be." Despite this he is regarded as one of Teesside's underground literary legends which he puts down to the continued practice of partial invisibility. Born in Middlesbrough to Anne a sales assistant who liked reading and raving about books and Ray a bricklayer, Bob spent most of his teenage weekends mixing darbo, digging foundations and catching and stacking bricks. He says school was a lesson in learning to become invisible which worked on the whole in keeping him out of trouble or at least not getting caught but also led to him missing out on early opportunities such as studying literature although he liked reading fantasy and adventure novels and often wrote stories. After leaving school he drifted, spending a year in art college, a year training to be a hair dresser, worked on building sites and on conveyor belts in factories interspersed with periods of unemployment. This was the mid 80s and Northern industrial towns were suffering heavily under Thatcherism. This all sounds bleak, and some of it was, but there were lots of laughs, alcohol, drugs and counter cultural conversations; and Bob was still reading and writing, expanding his understanding and his imagination. It was then he met and fell in love with Louise who looked at him as if he was actually there. He began attending a creative writing workshop at the local library which introduced him to an active network of other writers and he got involved in helping to organise the 'Writearound Festival' and help edit Outlet magazine and the Writearound The Year magazine as well as attend Teesside Writers Workshop and poetry readings. Encouraged to develop his writing further Bob applied to study a Creative Arts degree at Crewe & Alsager College and despite having few formal qualifications was offered a place. Lou and Bob married and moved to Crewe for three years. From chipping old mortar off used bricks in August 1989 to studying the principles of Wagnerian Opera, Brechtian Epic Theatre, American poetry, Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, Barthes, Foucault, Derrida and working with student actors, musicians, dancers, visual artists to create integrated arts performance pieces the course was a revelation and an opportunity to transform who he thought he was and who he could be. On returning to Middlesbrough, he rejoined the writing community, volunteering as part of the editorial team for Mudfog Press and as the events officer for Paranoia Press; organised multimedia based poetry shows and exhibitions involving image and text; and began to teach part-time for Leeds University Adult Education Centre, while studying an MA in Modern Literature & Politics at Teesside University and working in schools as a visiting writer. This breadth of involvement in the local community showed him there were many talented people of all ages who suffered from the same sense of invisibility he'd known. Shortly after his first pamphlet 'Gothic Horror' was published Louise and Bob's daughter, Robyn, was born. Bob realised he needed a more secure source of income and managed to secure the post of Literature Officer at Cleveland Arts where he ran a wide programme of innovative projects across the five borough councils, working with local writers, visiting authors, playwrights and poets, library services, youth services, schools and colleges, boxing clubs, grass roots community organisations, groups of young role players, to build opportunities for emerging wordsmiths and strengthen Teesside's literary scene, including organising Teesside's first ever Poetry Slam. Along with Dougie Pincott he organised and hosted the legendary Verb Garden