John Gallas was born in 1950 in Wellington, New Zealand. He came to England in 1971 to study Old Icelandic at Oxford, and stayed. He has worked for many years as a teacher with the Leicestershire Behaviour Support Team. He has published seven collections of poetry with Carcanet Press and edited the anthology of world poetry THE SONG ATLAS (2002). Swims like a fish, cycles like a windmill.