Barbara Hickson’s poems have appeared in anthologies and journals including Magma, Poetry Salzburg Review, London Grip, Channel, Echtrai and Finished Creatures amongst many others. Her poems have also been placed and commended in several competitions including Magma Editors’ Choice and The Plough Prize. She holds a B.A. (Hons) in Literature and an M.A. in Creative Writing (Poetry).
 
In 2019 she had twelve poems published in a shared collection entitled Rugged Rocks, Running Rascals – poems for complicated times, published by DragonSpawn Press.
 
Sharon Black says of Rugged Rocks, Running Rascals:
 

Barbara Hickson’s themes, the sea and wildlife, are common in poetry, but the voice she brings to them is not. She turns her experiences of the natural world inside out to reveal their gleaming insides. Set on the Scottish Hebrides, and the hills and coastline around her native Lancashire, her poems remind us that the world exists on more than one level, and that if we watch and listen hard enough, we can find the extraordinary right in front of us.

 

In 2021 Barbara’s debut pamphlet A Kind of Silence was published by Maytree Press.
 
Read Carla Scarano’s review of it in London Grip here.
 
Other comments on A Kind of Silence:
 

Barbara Hickson’s poems take the reader on a stirring journey from mainland to island, coast to forest, chapel to bothy, exploring the tensions that exist between loss and abundance, light and dark and, most compelling of all, sound and silence. We learn to heed the call of the curlew, eavesdrop on the snuffles of badgers, grow increasingly fluent in the language of wind and rain. At times, the human and more-than-human realms converge and collaborate – ‘our questions’ are ‘held’ by buttercups – while other poems confront the realisation that the natural world is utterly indifferent to our concerns. This is a beautifully-crafted pamphlet that engages and moves the reader from first page to well beyond the last.

 

Susan Richardson

 
 

Barbara Hickson’s poetry invites the suspension of time, allowing us to dwell in a landscape, an encounter with nature or in a moment of introspection. These meditative poems attest to that which is becoming ever more clear – that the human and natural worlds are entwined, and that a thought cannot exist in separation.

 

Karen Lloyd

 
 

As always, I read Barbara’s fine poems with keen anticipation. As always, I wasn’t disappointed. What marks her work out is a stylish clarity and apparent simplicity that is luminous in its effects, and she has the admirable and uncommon talent of knowing when less is more. The poems linger in your imagination; and for me they were especially poignant as many of them were first drafted on or as a result of the retreats I lead on the magical Isle of Iona. The cover is a very fine image of Iona by an artist named Tracy Levine; it complements the contents perfectly.

 

Roselle Angwin

 
 

Barbara’s second pamphlet, Only the Shining Hours, was published by Maytree Press in March 2024.
 
Comments on Only the Shining Hours:
 

I love its precise knowledge and understated relationship with the natural environment expressed in delicate and memorable imagery.

 

Carole Coates

 
 

This poet knows how to craft a poem, yet maintain tenderness and sensitivity with an eye for detail. Her words sing on the page and in the ear. Barbara Hickson tunes in to a sense of place, of people, flora and fauna.
 
I felt I was with her on her journeys, inner and outer. How journeys both of reflection and musings sit comfortably with the physicality of fells, sea and weather. I enjoyed the look of the poems on the page, their movement and sway; their form enhancing the words and themes. A talented poet!

 

Geraldine Green

 
 

Barbara lives in Lancaster with her husband and is a keen fell-walker, organic gardener and nature conservation volunteer. She is currently working with the National Trust and Natural England monitoring hazel dormice in North Lancashire woodlands.