Surely there is a poem in this – the son of a taxi driver ditching his birth name for a posh-sounding moniker assigned by kids who were teasing him?

Well, not yet, but McCall, one of Australia’s most celebrated contemporary poets, has been busy writing about plenty else.

His work has brought people to tears, including Swiss tennis great Roger Federer and steely New York City ­firefighters reflecting on the terror attacks of 9/11.

He has saluted in verse our Anzacs on the shore of Gallipoli and penned tributes to sporting legends such as Greg Norman and Dawn Fraser, as well as birthday poems for billionaires like logistics king Lindsay Fox.

But before he was “a poet for hire”, he was a boy called Jason.

It was towards the end of high school at De La Salle College in Redcliffe when McCall says his mates began to sledge him ­because he was “more ­academic”.

“Rupert sounded English upper class so that’s what they went with, to stitch me up, and I hated it,” the 54-year-old father of four says.

“Because I protested so ­vigorously about being called Rupert, it was only ever going to stick.”

Stick, it did. At Brothers Rugby Club in Albion where McCall played with distinction, at QUT while completing a law degree and then after tossing in a budding legal ­career at age 23 to wing it as a full-time poet.

Even his parents, Kerry and Maureen, were on board with the name change, although his paternal grandfather Barney struggled.

He probably shouldn’t have. Barney McCall was christened Francis, while his brother Dick started life as Arthur.

Both men fought in World War II as Rats of Tobruk, ­defending the Libyan port during its 1941 siege by the German and Italian Afrika Korps.

Only Barney made it home.

When McCall and I catch up on Wednesday, at The Paddo tavern a few streets from his home, he had just that morning delivered his Gallipoli ode to students at Mt Maria College in Mitchelton. Ahead of Anzac Day, he told them that the 17-year-old ­soldier about to land in Turkey in 1915 – and for whom “death blows a breeze that puts ice in his knees”, who “is hit and it burns then to peace he returns” – could be their brother.

“He’s going to the footy this weekend, he’s on your train, he’s your older brother – when you put it that way, kids take notice,” McCall says.

“It’s 110 years since we landed in Gallipoli and it’s as powerful today as it was then.”

McCall recited the same ode at Anzac Cove in 2005, with dignitaries including prime minister John Howard in attendance at the Dawn Service.

“It was the 90th anniversary of the landing, and there were probably 15 to 20,000 people; I was as nervous and frightened and cold as I’ve ever been in my life, and I remember standing on the side of the stage feeling like I was about to crumble,” he says.

“It was the most important stage of my life up to that point and, as I was turning purple, somebody asked if I wanted to borrow their scarf and I tried to say yes but no word came out of my mouth.”

But as McCall thought, “now I’m really in trouble”, he had what he describes as “a beautiful blessing”.

“I had a moment where I ­realised … on this very patch of sand where I am standing, 90 years before, there is a young Australian kid who had to jump out of a boat, get through the water, not get shot, try to find some shelter, stay alive, watch his mates die, and all I have to do is stand up and do what I love – recite a poem – so I felt my blood warm and I came back to myself,” he says.

“Now, whenever I have to take a big stage and I feel ­nervous and frightened, that moment of perspective in ­Gallipoli is one I revisit time and time again.”

McCall – father to Ella, 25, Jake, 23, Jimmy 20, and ­Lachie, 18, with wife Kate, 49 – says it is important to connect with today’s young people.

“They have to understand that they have the qualities of the Anzac soldier,” he says. “That young girl in Year 7 at Mt Maria ­College needs to know she is courageous, she is resilient, she is hopeful for the future and she can make a difference, not necessarily in war but in life.”

McCall – who has self-­published several books of verse and in 2013 received an OAM for services to the community, particularly as a poet – says life is a ­series of interconnected experiences.

Had he not been introduced to the poems of Banjo Paterson while in year 5 at Our Lady of Lourdes in Woody Point and, that same year of 1980, witnessed Redcliffe local Arty Beetson lead Queensland out of the sheds at Lang Park for the first State of Origin match, he would never have forged an unlikely marriage between poetry and sport.

Had he not been shaken, as a newly minted family lawyer, by the impact on children of parents breaking up – “the injustice killed me, I couldn’t go home and forget about it” – he would not have abruptly changed careers.

“I remember the looks on my parents’ faces when I told them I was retiring as a solicitor, at age 23, and writing poetry for a living, but I was 10-feet tall and bulletproof back then,” he says.

Had McCall’s grandfather not been a Rat of Tobruk, he says he wouldn’t have been so passionate about Anzac Day.

“And if I wasn’t into the Anzac spirit, I probably wouldn’t have got the gig at Gallipoli in 2005, and if I didn’t speak at Gallipoli and feel ­almost a responsibility to help the next wave of veterans ­returning from Afghanistan, then I wouldn’t have started moving in those circles, and been the right person to pay tribute to the firefighters of 9/11.”

McCall had written A Firefighter’s Dream for Aussie firefighters in 2009, but when his delivery brought a Sydney hotel room to tears, a video of his ­recital made its way to New York.

“Liam Flaherty, probably the most well-known firefighter in the US, called me and asked if I would do the honour of reciting that poem at ground zero.”

McCall says doing so, on September 11, 2010, was a “pinch-me moment” and he and Flaherty were now “bonded forever”.

In 2013, McCall – who by this stage had become impressively credentialed with writing poetry about sporting legends – was asked to pen a verse at the Brisbane International tennis tournament for Roger Federer and Rod Laver.

He called it The Masterpiece – an imaginary tale of the two greats from different eras playing each other – and when McCall referenced Federer’s birthplace and parents, the Swiss player shed a tear.

“That’s when Roger got emotional – it’s the same for everyone, when you remind people of where they came from,” he says. “It starts with family and it ends with family, and you can have a lot of fun in between and achieve a lot of things, but that’s your best victory, isn’t it? That your family laid the foundation and then you do the same thing for your family.”

And, as the case of Jason McCall – forever known as Rupert – confirms, it doesn’t matter what name your parents gave you.

It’s who you become that brings the magic.

Steak: 200g rump with chips and salad

Venue: The Paddo, Paddington

Rating: 8/10

Email Kylie Lang