Precious Cargo

In 2011, Adam Lowe and Sue Shaw led Barnsley Young Writers in exploring the collections at Wentworth Castle and Cannon Hall in Barnsley. Their task: to tell the stories of plant collectors and gardeners, colonialists and sailors, flowers and fruit in their movements to and from Barnsley. Precious Cargo was an exploration of our ties to the world and to the past, commissioned as part of London 2012’s Cultural Olympiad programme in Yorkshire. Here is a selection of their best poems, in print for the first time.