Of his friend Tom Pickard, Allen Ginsberg said the following: "Young Tom Pickard for years ran the Morden Tower readings in Newcastle, G.B., and from early 1960's on was chief friend host & proponent of new wave American poetics--Creeley, Dorn, Duncan, post-William Carlos Williams visitors passing thru his Northumbria. I am an old admirer of his poetry and believe he's one of the livest, truest poets of Great Britain. Under guidance from his friend the elder Basil Bunting, he's writ poetry with condensation, sharp focus and local speech directness in lineage joining Willliams and 'Geordie' lyric vernacular."
