Sheffield's natural poet
OWEN Barber spends much of his life considering the nature of Sheffield.
He walks and runs through the city's western woods and parks and, as an amateur local historian, he can tell you of the packhorse routes and field boundaries of Carterknowle and Brincliffe and the wildlife and landscape of the Porter Valley.
He also spends a day or two a week working in the organic walled garden at Wortley, thanks to the outreach work of Heeley City Farm.
Over the last 12 years he's been taking notes of his observations of Sheffield's natural world and turning them into poetry.
"I'd tried to write prose but I couldn't exactly do that," he says.
"At the moment I started I didn't really think of writing poems, it just came out that way."
Owen says the background for his poetry came from his mother, Kate Rose.
"When I was very young my mum wrote words out for me so I could point at them. So in later life I could use them with many other words."
Owen, 32, has Down's Syndrome, a fact he sees as unimportant when considering his poetry.
"I do have a disability but I don't like the word," he says. "It's a part of me and I have been known to write about it but I just go round in circles."
This week his work goes on exhibition at Ecclesall Library. A small booklet of his 'Selected Poems' will also be on sale at 2 with proceeds going to St Luke's community nurses who cared for Owen's grandmother, artist Lilla Speir, in the latter stages of her life.
Owen has previously had work published by the Abbeydale Writers group, exhibited at the Blue Moon Caf in the centre of Sheffield, and recited his work with the 'Creative 8' group at the Peace in the Park festival.
He hopes one day to publish a 'Collected Poems' – to emphasise the potential he produces two large green folders containing his work over the last 12 years.
His main subject is the "diversity of all the nature we've got in Sheffield", he says. He also likes to reflect on Sheffield in the past, especially the city centre and the area around his home near Nether Edge.
"I like to look at the past and what things could have been like."
His poem on the Peace Gardens appreciates the open gardens of 80 years ago, without today's enclosures and balustrades.
"Now the Peace Gardens have been shortened. I like to see more public open spaces rather then enclosed ones. I prefer to see grass rather than planters and benches all the time."
Nevertheless, he thinks the city centre as a whole looks good, especially the railway station, but adds that Devonshire Green now "looks like Spain".
"It's good in a way but I think I'd prefer a little less concrete."
His own favourite poets are TS Elliott and Wordsworth and John Clare ("I can see where he's coming from," Owen says, of Clare's nature poetry).And one of his favourite poems is Willam Blake's 'The Echoing Green', which champions the old village greens admired by Owen.
Although his subjects are much wider than his own condition, he says: "Sometimes I think I am speaking for people with my disability. I think I'm saying they should be respected more and trusted for what they want to do in life."
And regarding his exhibition he says: "I hope people will come and enjoy my poems and go away feeling positive about things. Maybe they will inspire them to write, too."
The exhibition of Owen Barber's poems is on display at Ecclesall Library until December 12.
Owen Barber can be contacted at katerose1947@hotmail.com
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Friday 25 May 2012
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