Tom Hirons

Tom Hirons is a poet and storyteller by trade. He was born and raised in East Anglia, but lived in Scotland for almost twenty years before gravitating to Dartmoor over ten years ago. Tom has been storytelling publicly for over 15 years and writing for much longer. He now teaches storytelling for Hedgespoken travelling storytelling theatre and offers one-to-one poetry and story-work sessions. Tom is also occasionally still a community acupuncturist, with a special interest in working with trauma and PTSD. Having survived perilous territories of mental health in his younger days, in mid-life Tom is particularly interested in how some elegant and simple maps of the self can assist men, and young men specifically, in understanding what it is to be alive in these peculiar times, with all the uneven baggage and gifts we inherit from family, culture and ancestry, and how these maps might help us all not just survive our situations, but come into a greater sense of who we are.

Essentially a cheerful fellow driven to apoplexy and grief by the madness of our times, Tom is calmed most effectively by walking on Dartmoor, by sleeping in the deep greenwood and by the sound of true words spoken. His written work has appeared all over the place. His poetry book 'Sometimes a Wild God' is fast becoming a subcultural passport or token of recognition, passing from hand to hand and mouth to ear all about the world. Tom currently lives just south of Dartmoor where he co-parents two young and feral sons.

He says: There's much to lament and grieve, and much to be angry about and take action against, but to be alive is an incredible thing. We do not know when death or disaster will take us, so let us live fully while we may and nourish the web of life around us as much as we possibly can. I have heard all the terrible news and I have looked into the inferno of the future, but I am still in love with this life.