Bill Griffiths is a poet and Anglo-Saxon scholar associated with the British Poetry Revival.
Griffiths was born in Middlesex. As a teenager, he became a Hell's Angel, and his experiences with bikers 
provided material for many of his early poems. From 1971, these poems were published in 
Poetry Review,under the editorship of Eric Mottram, and by Bob Cobbing's Writers Forum. 
He also collaborated on a number of performance poetry pieces with Cobbing and others.

Griffiths soon started his own imprint, Pirate Press, which published work by himself and other 
like-minded poets. In addition to Cobbing and other Writers Forum poets, Griffiths lists his early 
influences as Michael McClure, Muriel Rukeyser, John Keats, George Crabbe, Gerard Manley Hopkins 
and Old English poetry.

In 1987, he obtained a Ph.D. in Old English from King's College, London. He has since published a 
number of editions and translations of Old English texts.

Griffiths is a prolific poet and has published widely in Britain and the United States. In recent 
years he has been living in Seaham, Durham and running Amra Press, which publishes his poetry and
books oflocal studies. His books of poetry from other publishers include Rousseau and the Wicked 
(Invisible Books, London, 1996), Etruscan Reader 5 (with Tom Raworth and Tom Leonard) 
(Etruscan Books, Buckfastleigh, 1997) Nomad Sense (Talus Editions, London, 1998), 
A Book of Spilt Cities (Etruscan Books, 1999), Ushabtis (Talus, 2001) and Durham and other 
sequences (West House Books, 2002).


 

POETRY ON THE UNDERGROUND
(about Bob Cobbing and Hugh Metcalfe )

So Bob & Hugh disembarked at the enchanted station.
“Get the case open.”
The case can serve for coins.
Free-wheel.
“CHEEOOUNX” THE BRAKES.
“HEEOOOW” the air-doors.
The mechanical simulated climax breaking in on the vocal-strum.
There was a mixed reaction:
“Some of them really seemed to like it,
Some of them seemed to hate it.”
Then the staff turned up.
Well, you had tickets in your pocket, didn’t you?
“Yes, but we were nearly arrested.”
As buskers? Or poets?
“To be honest, we were both the worse for I don’t remember much.”


IN THE ORIENT

something darker  than blue igloo  a chequered blackness  evanescent 
and  violet  centre on  a gastropod its grotto  of dull  BEFORE  the 
flare  a lime light  a concourse  events  stray and irregular stampedes  
hoof-extras (camels)  whispers of:  Where are the kings?  How can we 
fit it all in?  Sorry, cherry-tree.  Calls for more action/pathos.  
Until:  Lamps & pipes (or shawms), and angels, espionage, dreams, 
empires, hints of ‘wolf-boy’, the mother emergency, queried 
nationality, & prophecy          of an adequate  applause


NEW YEAR

“Keep ahaad!”
gollered the onsetter
& rapped to bank
where the banksman most wound them
safely upto 2006