Owen Leeming
{{short description|New Zealand poet, playwright and media producer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2020}}
{{Use New Zealand English|date=November 2020}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = Owen Leeming
| image =
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| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1930}}
| birth_place = Christchurch, New Zealand
| death_date =
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| occupation = {{Cslist|Poet|playwright|media producer|}}
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| spouse = {{marriage|Mireille Leeming|1989|}}
| children =
| awards = {{Awards|Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship|1970}}
| notable_works = {{plainlist}}
- "The Priests of Serrabone" (1962 poem)
- Venus is Setting (1972 collection)
{{endplainlist}}
| years_active =
}}
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 Leeming 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.
Early life and career
Leeming was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, and attended St Bede's College on a boarding scholarship.{{cite book |last1=Baxter |first1=James K. |author-link=James K. Baxter |editor1-last=Weir |editor1-first=John Edward |title=Complete Prose Volume 4 |date=2015 |publisher=Victoria University Press |location=Wellington, New Zealand |isbn=978-1-7765-6037-0 |url=http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Bax4Pros-t1-body-d8.html#name-408140-mention |access-date=20 October 2020 |chapter=Short Biographies of Some New Zealand Writers}}{{cite news |title=St Bede's College Scholarships |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19431201.2.57 |access-date=3 May 2023 |work=The Press |date=1 December 1943 |page=4}} He studied French and music at the University of Canterbury, then named Canterbury College.{{cite encyclopedia |last=Hughes |first=Janet |editor1-last=Robinson |editor1-first=Roger |editor2-last=Wattie |editor2-first=Nelson |encyclopedia=The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature |title=Leeming, Owen |url=https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001/acref-9780195583489-e-690 |access-date=20 October 2020 |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-1917-3519-6 |oclc=865265749 |doi=10.1093/acref/9780195583489.001.0001|url-access=subscription }} During this time he won a Christchurch Civic Music Council competition with a choral music composition,{{cite news |title=Orpheus Choir |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19541029.2.5 |access-date=3 May 2023 |work=The Press |date=29 October 1954 |page=2}} and in 1953 he was the chairman of the Canterbury College Drama Society.{{cite news |last1=Leeming |first1=Owen |title=Canterbury College Drama Society |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19530223.2.5.2 |access-date=3 May 2023 |work=The Press |date=23 February 1953 |page=2}}
After university, Leeming went to France to study musical composition, having been granted a government bursary, but left after a year.{{cite web |title=Owen Leeming |url=https://www.thearts.co.nz/artists/owen-leeming |website=The Arts Foundation Te Tumu Toi |access-date=20 October 2020}} He subsequently worked in broadcasting in London and New Zealand for a number of years. 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.{{cite web |last1=Popova |first1=Maria |title=Poets in Partnership: Rare 1961 BBC Interview with Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes on Literature and Love |url=https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/07/16/sylvia-plath-ted-hughes-bbc-interview-1961/ |website=Brain Pickings |access-date=20 October 2020}}{{cite journal |last1=Clark |first1=Heather L. |title=Tracking the Thought-Fox: Sylvia Plath's Revision of Ted Hughes |journal=Journal of Modern Literature |date=Winter 2005 |volume=28 |issue=2 |page=100 |doi=10.1353/jml.2005.0025 |s2cid=162728132 |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/184560/pdf |access-date=20 October 2020|url-access=subscription }} 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.{{cite web |title=Interviews of the three sisters of Katherine Mansfield |url=https://natlib.govt.nz/records/35830392?search%5Bi%5D%5Bname_authority_id%5D=-135374&search%5Bpath%5D=items |website=National Library of New Zealand |access-date=20 October 2020}}{{cite web |title=The Sisters of Kezia |url=https://www.ngataonga.org.nz/collections/catalogue/catalogue-item?record_id=189965 |website=Ngā Taonga |publisher=The New Zealand Archive of Film, Television and Sound Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua Me Ngā Taonga Kōrero |access-date=20 October 2020}}
Literary career
Leeming's early poems and stories were published in various English journals, including The London Magazine and The Guinness Book of Poetry. In 1959 his short story "The Following Wind" was published in the New Zealand journal Landfall.{{cite journal |last1=Leeming |first1=Owen |title=The Following Wind |journal=Landfall |date=December 1959 |volume=13 |issue=4 |pages=300–307 |url=http://www.landfallarchive.org/omeka/items/show/22214 |access-date=18 March 2022}} During his time in London he participated in poetry discussion group "The Group" along with fellow Antipodean expat Peter Porter.{{cite web |title=Cold Hub Press ~ Owen Leeming |url=https://www.coldhubpress.co.nz/through-your-eyes-owen-leeming-cold-hub-press---.html |website=Cold Hub Press |access-date=15 November 2020}} Leeming also wrote a number of plays for the stage and for radio. Leeming's most well-known poem, "The Priests of Serrabone", was published in Landfall in 1962.{{cite journal |last1=Leeming |first1=Owen |title=The Priests of Serrabone |journal=Landfall |date=1962 |volume=16 |issue=4 |pages=316–323 |url=http://www.landfallarchive.org/omeka/items/show/22226 |access-date=15 November 2020}} 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".{{cite journal |last1=Baxter |first1=James K. |title=Reply to a Review of 'The Rock Woman' |journal=Landfall |date=June 1971 |volume=25 |issue=2 |page=369 |url=http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Bax3Pros-t1-g1-t92.html |access-date=20 October 2020}}
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.{{cite news |last1=Manson |first1=Bess |title=Writing with the ghost of Katherine Mansfield |url=https://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/books/300040717/writing-with-the-ghost-of-katherine-mansfield |access-date=20 October 2020 |work=Stuff.co.nz |date=23 August 2020}} Following his residency, Leeming's first collection of poems, Venus is Setting, was published in 1972 by Caxton Press.{{cite book |last1=Leeming |first1=Owen |title=Venus is Setting |date=1972 |publisher=Caxton Press |location=Christchurch, New Zealand}} Its publication was supported by a grant from the New Zealand State Literary Fund.{{cite news |title=Six literary grants |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19720831.2.97 |access-date=28 July 2022 |work=The Press |date=31 August 1972}} 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".{{cite news |title=Poetry: the New Zealand scene |url=https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19730324.2.81.1 |access-date=28 July 2022 |work=The Press |date=24 March 1973 |page=10}}
After time in Africa and Asia as a Unesco consultant, Leeming settled in France and worked as an OECD translator. In 2014, two of his poems were published in journal Poetry New Zealand, forty years since his last poems were published in New Zealand.{{cite journal |last1=Leeming |first1=Owen |title=Boeing Boeing / Charleston, Charleston |journal=Poetry NZ |date=2013 |issue=47 |page=58 |publisher=Puriri Press |location=Auckland, NZ |issn=0114-5770}} His experiences travelling back to New Zealand with his wife generated his second collection of poems, Through Your Eyes, published in 2018.{{cite book |last1=Leeming |first1=Owen |title=Through Your Eyes: Poems Early and Late |date=2018 |publisher=Cold Hub Press |location=Christchurch, New Zealand |isbn=978-0-4734-4419-8}} In 2021, Latitudes: New and Selected Poems 1954–2020 was published, containing poems from both his collections as well as previously unpublished works.{{cite book |last1=Leeming |first1=Owen |title=Latitudes: New and Selected Poems 1954–2020 |date=2021 |publisher=Cold Hub Press |location=Christchurch, New Zealand |isbn=978-0-473-57184-9}}{{cite web |title=Owen Leeming Latitudes |url=https://www.coldhubpress.co.nz/latitudes-owen-leeming-cold-hub-press------.html |website=Cold Hub Press |access-date=22 July 2021}} 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".{{cite journal |last1=Billot |first1=Victor |title=Old Worlds, New Worlds |journal=Landfall Review Online |date=1 February 2022 |url=https://landfallreview.com/old-worlds-new-worlds/ |access-date=3 May 2023}}
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.{{cite news |title=Leeming's life and loves |url=https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/whats-on/theatre-news/leemings-life-and-loves-1672204 |access-date=20 October 2020 |work=Chronicle Live |date=15 December 2003}}
{{as of|2020}}, Leeming lived in Paris with his wife Mireille.{{cite web |last1=Leeming |first1=Jan |title=New Zealand Earthquake – Blog |url=http://www.jan-leeming.com/blog/347-new-zealand-earthquake |website=Jan Leeming |access-date=26 October 2020}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://www.thearts.co.nz/artists/owen-leeming Owen Leeming], profile on the Arts Foundation of New Zealand's website.
- [https://www.coldhubpress.co.nz/through-your-eyes-owen-leeming-cold-hub-press---.html Through Your Eyes by Owen Leeming], publisher's website.
- [https://www.thearts.co.nz/articles/the-dream-cave "The Dream Cave"], poem by Owen Leeming written during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
- [https://natlib.govt.nz/records/22422434 Leeming, Owen (active 1960s)], material held by the National Library of New Zealand.
{{Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellows|state=autocollapse}}
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Category:University of Canterbury alumni
Category:People educated at St Bede's College, Christchurch
Category:New Zealand male poets
Category:20th-century New Zealand poets