Hello, and welcome.
I’m Adam, a poet, filmmaker, and someone who has somehow found himself in a lot of strange and unexpected places while chasing creative dreams.
When I look back, it’s quite surreal, really. From growing up around Feltham and Surrey, to ending up on film sets, performing on stages, writing poems late at night, building poetry communities, and meeting people from all walks of life through art, it’s been a fairly unusual journey, and definitely not a straightforward one.
This page is simply a chance to share a little more about that story.
The highs, the setbacks, the strange moments, the lessons learned, and the people who shaped me along the way. More than anything, though, it’s the story of someone who loves creativity, loves people, and still believes deeply in the power of storytelling to bring us together.
I’m really glad you’re here.
short bio
Adam Gary is a poet, filmmaker, and the inaugural Surrey Poet Laureate. Based in Surrey, his work is rooted in community, conversation, and the belief that poetry should feel open to everyone, not just those already inside literary circles.
Before poetry became the centre of his work, Adam spent several years acting, working on productions including Avengers: Age of Ultron, Downton Abbey, and Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, after training with the National Youth Theatre. But it was through writing, and later filmmaking, that he found the strongest connection with both himself and other people. What began with writing poems in his late teens gradually grew into a lifelong passion for storytelling and creativity.
Adam’s poetry often explores everyday life, mental health, belonging, memory, and human connection. During the pandemic, his poem And In Our Loneliness We Came Together was archived by the Surrey History Centre as part of the county’s historical record.
Alongside his own writing, Adam is passionate about creating opportunities for others. He founded The Poetry Cove and now leads the Surrey Poet Laureateship, building poetry communities across the county through workshops, events, open mics, education programmes, and public projects. Through both live events and his online platforms, Adam’s aim has always been simple: to help more people feel that poetry belongs to them too.
awards and recognitions
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2024-2027
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my journey
Early Life and Inspirations
I’ve always had a very active imagination. As an only child, I spent a lot of time entertaining myself, usually by creating stories and entire little worlds with my toys. My mum still talks about sitting outside my bedroom door listening to me acting out these long adventures without realising anyone could hear me. Looking back now, I think storytelling was always there from the beginning.
I grew up around Bedfont and Feltham on the London border. School and I never completely clicked, if I’m honest, apart from drama. That was the one place where I truly felt at home. I loved the creativity of it, the friendships, the rehearsals, and the feeling of building something together. Some of my happiest memories from those years came from drama club.
Ironically, poetry itself didn’t interest me at all back then. I remember going to one poetry lesson while preparing for my GCSEs and never wanting to go back (and I rarely did). It just wasn’t taught in a way that captured my imagination. For me, it felt too focused on technique before emotion, analysis before expression.
That experience has stayed with me ever since. It’s one of the reasons I care so deeply now about making poetry feel open, creative, and enjoyable, especially for young people, but adults too. So many people I meet tell me they thought poetry “wasn’t for them” because of their experience at school. I understand that feeling completely.
I genuinely believe people connect with poetry when they’re first given permission to enjoy it, to express themselves, explore emotion, and find their own voice. The technical side matters too, of course, but for me, the love of poetry has to come first.
Acting was my first real creative love. After leaving school, I studied Performing Arts at college and threw myself into the world of theatre, auditions, rehearsals, and trying to figure out where I belonged within it all.
I quickly realised I wasn’t especially suited to traditional academic routes. I gave university a go, lasted about three months, collected a bit of debt, and quietly accepted that my path probably looked different to most people around me. Looking back, that was one of the best realisations I could have had.
Instead, I started learning in ways that felt more natural to me, through workshops, short courses, youth theatre, and by simply being around creative people. I trained at places like the Actor’s Centre in London and later became a member of the National Youth Theatre, which gave me some incredible experiences and introduced me to people who genuinely shaped my confidence as both a performer and a person.
One of the biggest turning points came during an intensive Meisner course at the Actors Temple near Warren Street. It completely changed how I thought about performance, emotion, and honesty in art. For the first time, acting stopped feeling like “pretending” and started feeling like genuine human connection.
Over the years, acting led me into some wonderfully surreal situations. I found myself working on film and television sets including Downton Abbey, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Fantastic Beasts, and The Monuments Men, sometimes in small roles, sometimes as a body double, and often simply trying to take it all in without looking too overwhelmed.
My very first professional job was on The Monuments Men, and honestly, I don’t think anything will ever quite top the feeling of that first day on set. To my left stood George Clooney, Matt Damon, and John Goodman. To my right were Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Jean Dujardin. Above us, a C-47 aircraft circled the Imperial War Museum airfield in Cambridge while we filmed.
At the time, I remember having one of those strange out-of-body moments where you suddenly think, “How on earth did I end up here?”
There were plenty of other surreal moments, too. I once found myself drunkenly chatting with Sir Ian McKellen at a gala event... a sentence that still sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud. As you’d hope, he was incredibly kind, patient, and completely gracious about the whole encounter.
Then there was sharing screen time with the late Dame Maggie Smith, which remains the only time in my life I’ve ever truly been star-struck. Some people just carry a presence that completely changes the atmosphere in a room, and she absolutely had that.
I also once managed to cost Marvel Studios a few thousand pounds after getting sand in my eye during a stunt sequence on Avengers: Age of Ultron, which probably sums up my acting career better than any polished industry story ever could.
Most of my roles were minor, but the experiences themselves were major to me. Standing on those sets, watching actors work, seeing the chaos and collaboration behind filmmaking... it all became part of my education. Even moments that never made the final cut, like improvising in a scene with Dominic West on Pride, became stories and memories I still carry with me now.
Although poetry eventually became the centre of my creative life, acting taught me a huge amount about storytelling, vulnerability, performance, and people. In many ways, I think it quietly laid the foundations for everything that came afterwards.
Downton
A Transition to Writing & Poetry
My relationship with poetry actually began through young love.
When I was around 18, towards the end of college, I wrote my first poem for my girlfriend at the time. I remember sitting near Kingston Bridge, writing about a place that meant something to us both, and feeling something shift in me while the words were coming together. It’s difficult to explain properly, but there was an emotional honesty to writing that I had never quite experienced through acting.
And then… I stopped. Performance was still my goal.
Oddly enough, it was reading Ray Manzarek’s autobiography about The Doors that pulled me back towards it again. Through that, I discovered more of Jim Morrison’s poetry and suddenly found myself looking at writing in a completely different way. Something clicked. I started writing constantly, sometimes several poems a day, and within a month, I’d written around 150 poems (Hyperfixation… am I right? IYKYK).
Most of them probably weren’t very good, if I’m being honest, but they were real, energetic, and full of discovery. Those poems eventually became my first collection, Poetry in Motion, and marked the beginning of taking writing seriously for the first time.
Around the same period, I fell in love with writers like Jack Kerouac and the Beat Generation. Their work felt alive to me, emotional, messy, human, unfiltered, and it gave me permission to stop worrying so much about whether poetry was “proper” and instead focus on whether it was honest.
The Meisner training I was doing at the time also had a huge impact on my writing. It taught me to trust emotion more deeply and to stop hiding behind performance. Looking back now, I think acting and poetry were feeding each other creatively in ways I didn’t fully understand at the time.
That eventually led to creating Nerdians: Back to the Past, a short film project that unexpectedly became another turning point for me. Although I originally saw it as an acting opportunity, the process of writing and building the story became the part I cared about most. When the film later won Best Comedy at the Tokyo International Short Film Festival, it quietly confirmed something I was already beginning to realise: storytelling itself was what truly mattered to me.
Over time, poetry slowly became less of a hobby and more of a way of understanding myself and the world around me. The books evolved alongside that journey too... from the rawness of my earlier work to the more reflective writing that came later.
One of the most unexpected chapters of that journey has been the creation of the Surrey Poet Laureateship, and becoming Surrey’s inaugural Poet Laureate. What began as an idea rooted in community and accessibility has grown into an entire non-profit organisation focused on helping more people discover the joy of poetry, regardless of background, experience, or education.
That role has led me into some truly surreal situations, too. I’ve found myself sitting on arts advisory boards, contributing to cultural forums, reading poems at civic ceremonies and inside council chambers, meeting councillors, mayors, and even the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey and many Deputies. I’ve had the privilege of helping ensure poetry has a place within important civic events and conversations, and seeing public organisations genuinely embrace the arts.
Some of those same civic leaders have even commissioned poems for events and occasions of their own, which is still something I occasionally struggle to process properly.
There are moments where I genuinely stop and think: how did the kid who skipped poetry lessons at school end up here?
Even now, I still feel like I’m learning. That’s one of the things I love most about poetry. There’s always more to discover, more to feel, and more ways to connect with people through words.
impact
My journey through poetry, film, and digital content creation has been marked by several milestones that not only celebrate my personal achievements but also reflect the broader impact of my work on the community and culture at large.
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One of the most heartening recognitions came when my poem "And In Our Loneliness We Come Together," penned during the first lockdown of the coronavirus pandemic, was archived by the Surrey History Centre. This poem, born out of a period of unprecedented global challenge, resonated deeply enough to be preserved as a testament to the human spirit during these trying times, a recognition I hold dear.
On the digital front, my YouTube channel has become a vibrant platform for poetry enthusiasts and aspiring poets alike, amassing nearly 10,000 subscribers and over 315,000 views. The channel, which features tutorial videos on how to write poetry presented in a fun and engaging manner, fills a gap I experienced in school, making poetry accessible and enjoyable for a wide audience.
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Through The Poetry Cove Magazine, I've had the privilege of introducing the world to new voices in poetry, giving 55 poets their publishing debuts and bringing 74 poems to print for the first time. This endeavor not only underscores my commitment to nurturing emerging talent but also contributes to the rich tapestry of contemporary poetry, offering a platform for diverse voices and perspectives.
These milestones, each marked by their respective icons and badges, symbolize the range of my contributions to the arts and the community. From the personal achievement of having my poetry recognized for its historical value, to the global reach of my digital content and the tangible impact of my magazine on the careers of budding poets, each accolade represents a step forward in my ongoing journey of artistic exploration and cultural contribution.
looking ahead...
These days, a lot of my time is spent building poetry communities, running workshops and events, writing, and trying to help people reconnect with creativity in a way that feels genuine and accessible.
I still find it slightly surreal that poetry became such a huge part of my life after avoiding it so much at school. But maybe that’s exactly why I care about it the way I do now.
At the heart of everything, whether it’s a poem, a workshop, a film project, or a conversation after an event, I think I’ve always just been interested in people and stories. That’s the thread that connects it all.
And honestly, I still feel like I’m figuring it out as I go.