Jim MacCool hands the Laurel Wreath to Revd Martin Gorick at Shakespeare’s Tomb

Dudley Poet-in-Residence Jim MacCool was chosen to bear the Laurel Wreath in the annual procession commemorating William Shakespeare’s Birthday in Stratford Upon Avon, which took place in brilliant sunshine this year on Saturday 28th April.
Poet Laureate Jim, 44, represented Historic Verse in Translation on behalf of October Is National Poetry Month Ltd., the Stratford-based organisation which has opened a satellite branch at the Old Meeting House, right in the heart of Dudley.
Following on from his work for RTE Radio Drama, Jim has been appointed Literary Translator of Goethe’s Reynard the Fox, an absolute staple of German Letters.
Father-of-five Jim and the family MacCool unfurled a banner depicting Shakespeare’s long poem the Rape of Lucrece outside the Shakespeare Family House on Henley Street. Jim MacCool is the author of a successful series of narrative poems called the Ionan Tales. He was “bowled over” to find himself bracketed in such illustrious artistic company as William Shakespeare, but admits that they do have some key features in common - both men are poets, both are playwrights, and both have fathered twins!
Says Jim, “Who should appear but the Bard of Avon in spectral form near the Shakespeare Centre. Will looked straight through me - I’m sure he only glided over for a moan!”
Jim has been in post in Dudley ten months. When he came, the Old Meeting House, which stands beside the Trident Shopping Centre in Horseley Gardens, was in a state of near-dereliction caused by thirty years of neglect. Says Jim, “The first thing we had to do was to clean the place from top to bottom and get the drains working. It was a tall order, but I’ve managed to initiate the necessary repairs and improvements, and we are now on course to offer formal work experience to long-term unemployed people who would like to help us with the Annual Tour.
We hope to create a limited number of vacancies for stage staff and sales people in the late summer.”
Jim MacCool is contracted to perform in small halls, schools and colleges the length and breadth of Britain during the autumn.