John Hall is a poet, teacher and essayist. He was born in the country now called Zambia in 1945 and moved to England in 1958, where he has lived ever since, mostly in Devon. His first poems to meet the attention of other writers appeared in The English Intelligencer in 1966. His first collection, Between the Cities, was published by Grosseteste in 1968. A number of other collections appeared between then and 1981. A period of 'not writing', discussed in his 1992 article, 'Writing and Not Writing', followed. He began to produce visual poems, particularly from the mid 1990s. He was a school teacher for five years (1971-1976) before moving to Dartington College of Arts (now part of Falmouth University), where he has worked in different capacities ever since. In the early years he was closely involved in the development of the Art and Social Context degree. He was Vice Principal Academic (or equivalent) between 1990 and 2002. He led the group that planned the Performance Writing degree for a 1994 start. In 2002 he took early retirement to be re-employed as Associate Director of Research. John Hall is Professor of Performance Writing at Falmouth University and visiting professor at York St John University.