Dave Calder (1946 - 2022)
Dave Calder (October 1946 - June 2022) was a poet, a maker, a thinker. He studied law at the University of Liverpool, but then became a binman, a teacher, a roofer. He worked for Merseyside Play Action Council as warehouse manager, then took part in the first poetry workshops on playschemes in 1976, alongside Libby Houston, Carol Ann Duffy and Dave Ward.
He and Dave Ward went on to set up The Windows Project in 1977, taking poetry to playschemes, youth centres, libraries and schools. Dave’s skill in carpentry built many of the early games that were used to stimulate ideas for writing. With The Windows Project, Dave created the ‘menu’ event – surprising customers in city centre cafes and bars with hand-written poems on linen tablecloths, placemats and wall hangings; with a team of poetry ‘waiters’ helping customers with the word games he had devised for the poetry menus and serving up readings of favourite poems at their tables.
A prolific poet, Dave published seven collections with Merseyside presses: Raven, Toulouse and Headland, and was represented in over 100 anthologies for children from publishers including Viking, Macmillan and Oxford University Press.
Dave’s published works
