Barry Tebb is an English

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

publisher Publishing is the activities of making information, literature, music, software, and other content, physical or digital, available to the public for sale or free of charge. Traditionally, the term publishing refers to the creation and distribu ...

and

author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...

. He was born in

Leeds Leeds is a city in West Yorkshire, England. It is the largest settlement in Yorkshire and the administrative centre of the City of Leeds Metropolitan Borough, which is the second most populous district in the United Kingdom. It is built aro ...

West Riding of Yorkshire The West Riding of Yorkshire was one of three historic subdivisions of Yorkshire, England. From 1889 to 1974 the riding was an administrative county named County of York, West Riding. The Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding of Yorkshire, lieu ...

in 1942.

Early career

Tebb studied English at the Leeds Training College 1961-1964 and while there ... "read widely, Proust, Firbank, Dickens, Ginsberg, Sartre, Kierkegaard, and of course, The New Poetry (Plath, Lowell and Berryman)" He and taught at Wyther Park Primary School 1964–67. At the University of Leeds he mixed with Gregory Fellows in Poetry including

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and

David Wright David Allen Wright (born December 20, 1982) is an American former professional baseball third baseman who spent his entire 14-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career with the New York Mets. Chosen by the Mets in the 2001 Major League Baseball dr ...

. The Gregory fellowship awards were set up by Eric Craven Gregory to encourage young artists. His poetry was being printed in ''Peace News'' and ''The Poetry Review'' and he was first published by Alan Tarling's 'Poet and Printer Press' ( -1996) in the sixties'. His first collection was praised by John Carey in the ''

New Statesman ''The New Statesman'' (known from 1931 to 1964 as the ''New Statesman and Nation'') is a British political and cultural news magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first c ...

'' and his work was included in the Penguin anthology '' Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain''.

Later career

After a twenty-five year (1970-1995) hiatus he began to write again. Appalled by the state of poetry publishing he founded Sixties Press in 1993 which has published poetry and books by a number of authors including Daisy Abey and Brenda Williams. A review of Tebbs work in ''Poetry Magazines'' included the following, "Tebb's poetry plays on tensions implicit in the public and the private, the spoken and unspoken, the formal and the free. He is obviously an accomplished poet with a great deal to say." A collection of his work including manuscripts, typescript papers, books and pamphlets (1993-2003) is held in the Special Collections in the Leeds University Library. His parents were working class and he enjoyed growing up in Leeds, and the sense of community among the people, of everyone looking out for each other. Tebb was also a passionate campaigner with Brenda Williams for better mental health services. He published several books on the subject. He also has a Mental Health Blog where he pursues the needs of patient and carers of which he had personal experience.

Private life

Tebb met Brenda Williams through a mutual friend and they married in 1967. They had a son Isaiah and subsequently divorced in 1975. They remained close and when they returned to Leeds lived next to each other. Williams began writing poetry in the '70s and Tebb published her work in his own Sixties Press. Williams moved to Oxford then London and Tebb moved close to where she resided each time. She had severe depression throughout her life and protested and campaigned for better mental health care and Tebb supported her efforts and was, when needed, her carer. She was diagnosed with

lung cancer Lung cancer, also known as lung carcinoma, is a malignant tumor that begins in the lung. Lung cancer is caused by genetic damage to the DNA of cells in the airways, often caused by cigarette smoking or inhaling damaging chemicals. Damaged ...

and died in July 2015. While living near Williams in London, Tebb met his partner, poet and fiction writer Daisy Abey. Isaiah, the child of Tebb and Williams, studied at

Eton Eton most commonly refers to Eton College, a public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. Eton may also refer to: Places *Eton, Berkshire, a town in Berkshire, England *Eton, Georgia, a town in the United States *Éton, a commune in the Meuse depa ...

then Baliol College Oxford but was hospitalised and remains so with chronic

paranoid schizophrenia Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, hearing voices), delusions, disorganized thinking and behavior, and flat or inappropriate affect. Symptoms develop gradually and typically begin ...

In 2004 he published a poem ''Coming to terms with schizophrenia'' (in ''Tranquility Street : new and selected poems)'' with the opening line : Why our son, why?

Bibliography

Poetry

1966 ''Five quiet shouters : an anthology of assertive verse :

Angela Carter Angela Olive Pearce (formerly Carter, Stalker; 7 May 1940 – 16 February 1992), who published under the name Angela Carter, was an English novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist, known for her feminist, magical realism, and picar ...

, Wendy Oliver, John Cotton and Michael Holmes.'' (editor) 1966 ''The quarrel with ourselves'' 1968 ''Three regional voices : Iain Crichton Smith, Barry Tebb and

Michael Longley Michael George Longley (27 July 1939 – 22 January 2025) was a Northern Irish poet. In his later years Longley observed: "It's a mystery where poems come from. If I knew where poems came from I would go there ... When I write a poem I am movi ...

'' 1969 '' Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain (One of 63 poets included)'' 1970 ''Cross-currents'' 1997 ''Summer with Margaret'' 2000 ''In memory of my mother and other poems'' 2000 ''Bridge over the Aire : the autobiography of a poet'' (co author with Daisy Abey) 2001 ''The road to Haworth Moor'' 2001 ''The lights of Leeds'' 2001 ''Windsong'' 2001 ''Winterlight'' 2002 ''Closing nostalgia road : selected poems 1962 - 2002'' 2003 ''Collected Poems'' 2003 ''Kissing cobblestones in Keighley'' 2004 ''Selected Poems 1964 - 2004'' 2004 ''Tranquility Street : new and selected poems'' 2005 ''Sixties Press anthology of Gregory Fellows' Poetry'' (co author with

Debjani Chatterjee Debjani Chatterjee MBE (born 21 November 1952) is an Indian-born British poet and writer. She lives in Sheffield, England. Life Chatterjee was born in Delhi and has lived in India, Japan, Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Egypt, and Morocco, before c ...

) 2006 ''The real survivors anthology : poetry for life (Easy guide for patients and carers (EGPAC)) (editor)'' 2007 ''The nostalgic bus : new collected poems'' 2008 ''Strangers on the shore'' 2009 ''New poems 2007 - 2009'' 2015 ''Cut Flowers – Selected Poems 1964-2015'' 2016 ''Barry Tebb Collected Poems 1964-2016''

Novels/Mental Health Issues

2003 ''Kith and kin : experiences in mental health caring'' 2004 ''The great freedom : a novella about the 'Leeds poetic renaissance' of the sixties'' 2005 ''Life and death in Camden'' 2005 ''Censored in Camden :the closure of Jamestown Day Centre'' 2005 ''Pitfall Street'' 2005 ''The fiddler and his bow :the autobiography of a poet'' 2006 ''Beyond stigma : experiences of mental health survivors'' ''(Easy guide for patients and carers (EGPAC))'' 2006 ''Acid drops : selected reviews'' 2008 ''No children should have to live the way I lived : Sutton young carers handbook'' 2013 ''The overdose (EGPAC)'' 2014 Young carers handbook (editor) (Kindle edition of 2008 title)