Owen Leeming

Owen Leeming (born 1930) is a New Zealand poet, playwright, radio presenter and television producer. While working in broadcasting in London and New Zealand in the 1950s and 1960s, he had short stories and poems published in various magazines and journals, and wrote stage and radio plays. In 1970 he was the first recipient of one of New Zealand's foremost literary awards, the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship, after which he published his first collection of poetry. Later in life he settled in France and became a translator. His second collection of poetry was published in 2018, over four decades after his first collection, followed by a collection of selected works in 2021.

Owen Leeming
Born1930 (age 92–93)
Christchurch, New Zealand
Occupation
  • Poet
  • playwright
  • media producer
Notable works
  • "The Priests of Serrabone" (1962 poem)
  • Venus is Setting (1972 collection)
Notable awardsKatherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship
1970
Spouse
Mireille Leeming
​
(m. 1989)​

Early life and career

Leeming was born in Christchurch, New Zealand and attended St Bede's College on a boarding scholarship.[1][2] He studied French and music at the University of Canterbury, then named Canterbury College.[3] During this time he won a Christchurch Civic Music Council competition with a choral music composition,[4] and in 1953 he was the chairman of the Canterbury College Drama Society.[5]

After university, Leeming went to France to study musical composition, having been granted a government bursary, but left after a year.[6] He subsequently worked in broadcasting in London and New Zealand for a number of years.[3][6][1] Notably, in 1961, Leeming interviewed Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath for the BBC, in a radio broadcast entitled Two of a Kind: Poets in Partnership.[7][8] In 1962, Leeming interviewed the three surviving sisters of New Zealand author Katherine Mansfield. The interview was recorded for the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation archives.[9][10]

Literary career

Leeming's early poems and stories were published in various English journals, including The London Magazine and The Guinness Book of Poetry.[3][6] In 1959 his short story "The Following Wind" was published in the New Zealand journal Landfall.[11] During his time in London he participated in poetry discussion group "The Group" along with fellow Antipodean expat Peter Porter.[12] Leeming also wrote a number of plays for the stage and for radio.[3] Leeming's most well-known poem, "The Priests of Serrabone",[1] was published in Landfall in 1962.[13] It was described by New Zealand writer James K. Baxter in 1971 as "masterly", and as "one of the documents to which I turn for reassurance in my private clumsy labours to undo the harm the Catholic Church does to her young".[14]

Leeming was the first recipient of the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship award in 1970. This award allowed Leeming to spend a year in Menton, France as a writer in residence at the Villa Isola Bella, where Katherine Mansfield lived from 1919 to 1920.[6][15] Following his residency, Leeming's first collection of poems, Venus is Setting, was published in 1972 by Caxton Press.[16] Its publication was supported by a grant from the New Zealand State Literary Fund.[17] A review in newspaper The Press preferred Leeming's plays to his poetry, but nevertheless said that some of his poems "achieve a fluidity which reminds one of how well he can write". The review praised in particular "The Priests of Serrabone" and noted it "holds its intensity fairly well and adroitly uses a complex stanza".[18]

After time in Africa and Asia as a Unesco consultant, Leeming settled in France and worked as an OECD translator.[6] In 2014, two of his poems were published in journal Poetry New Zealand, forty years since his last poems were published in New Zealand.[19] His experiences travelling back to New Zealand with his wife generated his second collection of poems, Through Your Eyes, published in 2018.[20] In 2021, Latitudes: New and Selected Poems 1954–2020 was published, containing poems from both his collections as well as previously unpublished works.[21][22] Victor Billot, reviewing the collection for Landfall, described some of the earlier unpublished works as "windows into a vanished world", and said his later poems "develop down strange and wonderful branches".[23]

Personal life

Leeming had a brief relationship in the 1960s with British television personality Jan Leeming. Although they never married, she took his name by deed poll and did not change it after their separation.[24]

As of 2020, Leeming lived in Paris with his wife Mireille.[6][25]

References
  1. Baxter, James K. (2015). "Short Biographies of Some New Zealand Writers". In Weir, John Edward (ed.). Complete Prose Volume 4. Wellington, New Zealand: Victoria University Press. ISBN 978-1-7765-6037-0. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  2. "St Bede's College Scholarships". The Press. 1 December 1943. p. 4. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
  3. Hughes, Janet (2006). "Leeming, Owen". In Robinson, Roger; Wattie, Nelson (eds.). The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature. Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-1917-3519-6. OCLC 865265749. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  4. "Orpheus Choir". The Press. 29 October 1954. p. 2. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
  5. Leeming, Owen (23 February 1953). "Canterbury College Drama Society". The Press. p. 2. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
  6. "Owen Leeming". The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  7. Popova, Maria. "Poets in Partnership: Rare 1961 BBC Interview with Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes on Literature and Love". Brain Pickings. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  8. Clark, Heather L. (Winter 2005). "Tracking the Thought-Fox: Sylvia Plath's Revision of Ted Hughes". Journal of Modern Literature. 28 (2): 100. doi:10.1353/jml.2005.0025. S2CID 162728132. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  9. "Interviews of the three sisters of Katherine Mansfield". National Library of New Zealand. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  10. "The Sisters of Kezia". Ngā Taonga. The New Zealand Archive of Film, Television and Sound Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua Me Ngā Taonga Kōrero. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  11. Leeming, Owen (December 1959). "The Following Wind". Landfall. 13 (4): 300–307. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
  12. "Cold Hub Press ~ Owen Leeming". Cold Hub Press. Retrieved 15 November 2020.
  13. Leeming, Owen (1962). "The Priests of Serrabone". Landfall. 16 (4): 316–323. Retrieved 15 November 2020.
  14. Baxter, James K. (June 1971). "Reply to a Review of 'The Rock Woman'". Landfall. 25 (2): 369. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  15. Manson, Bess (23 August 2020). "Writing with the ghost of Katherine Mansfield". Stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  16. Leeming, Owen (1972). Venus is Setting. Christchurch, New Zealand: Caxton Press.
  17. "Six literary grants". The Press. 31 August 1972. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  18. "Poetry: the New Zealand scene". The Press. 24 March 1973. p. 10. Retrieved 28 July 2022.
  19. Leeming, Owen (2013). "Boeing Boeing / Charleston, Charleston". Poetry NZ. Auckland, NZ: Puriri Press (47): 58. ISSN 0114-5770.
  20. Leeming, Owen (2018). Through Your Eyes: Poems Early and Late. Christchurch, New Zealand: Cold Hub Press. ISBN 978-0-4734-4419-8.
  21. Leeming, Owen (2021). Latitudes: New and Selected Poems 1954–2020. Christchurch, New Zealand: Cold Hub Press. ISBN 978-0-473-57184-9.
  22. "Owen Leeming Latitudes". Cold Hub Press. Retrieved 22 July 2021.
  23. Billot, Victor (1 February 2022). "Old Worlds, New Worlds". Landfall Review Online. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
  24. "Leeming's life and loves". Chronicle Live. 15 December 2003. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
  25. Leeming, Jan. "New Zealand Earthquake – Blog". Jan Leeming. Retrieved 26 October 2020.
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