From Secrets Corner

Dean Parkin was born in 1969 and grew up in Carlton Colville, a village near Lowestoft in east Suffolk. He left school at sixteen to work at a printers and then a bookshop. From 1999 to 2015 he was part of The Poetry Trust team responsible for the annual international Aldeburgh Poetry Festival, ending up as Creative Director. He is now a full-time published writer, performer and workshop leader, running sessions for all ages from primary school children to the over 90s.

Dubbed ‘Suffolk’s unofficial Poet Laureate’ by BBC Radio Suffolk, Dean has written poetry collections for adults and children – The Swan Machine (2014) and The Bubble Wrap and Other Poems (Smith/Doorstop 2017) – over twenty books of local history, and three one-man shows. In 2018-19 he wrote and performed in Pearls from The Grit which drew sell-out audiences and rave reviews across the eastern region. 

Over the past decade he has created ten video poems with an East Anglian focus which have received over 60k online views. Commissioned by the BBC in 2019, his Suffolk Heart poem has become an annual feature of Suffolk Day each June and to date, 100k have viewed the accompanying film and in autumn 2023 he premiered Little Cote (2023), co-created with Nathan Berry,  his first short film. From Secrets Corner is his second collection of poems.