Barry Tebb

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)" [2] He and taught at Wyther Park Primary School 1964–67.[3] At the University of Leeds he mixed with Gregory Fellows in Poetry[4] including Martin Bell, Peter Redgrove, Jon Silkin and David Wright. The Gregory fellowship awards were set up by Eric Craven Gregory to encourage young artists.[4]

His poetry was being printed in Peace News and The Poetry Review[2] and he was first published by Alan Tarling's 'Poet and Printer Press' ( -1996)[2] in the sixties'.[5] His first collection was praised by John Carey in the New Statesman and his work was included in the Penguin anthology Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain.[6]

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.[7] 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."[8]

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.[9]

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.[2] 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.[10]

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 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 then Baliol College Oxford but was hospitalised and remains so with chronic paranoid schizophrenia [11] 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?[12]

• Tebb, Barry (2005). The Fiddler and His Bow: The Autobiography of a Poet. Sixties Press. ISBN 0952999412.