John Darker
The Unsighted Reciter
The Unsighted Reciter, John Darker, is a poet based in Hertfordshire, England, whose words emerge from the shifting landscape between sight and darkness.
John is severely sight impaired and lives with retinitis pigmentosa, a genetic degenerative eye condition that has gradually changed the way he experiences the world.
His poetry grows from that changing relationship with sight, exploring blindness gain, sensory experience, memory and the unexpected ways perception can transform.
His poems travel from darker perspectives towards lighter insights, finding their way through the spaces where darkness meets light. Here, memory becomes a kind of topography. Sound becomes landscape. Touch becomes revelation.
Through poetry, John explores what it means to lose sight while discovering new ways of encountering the world. His work makes space for disorientation, adaptation, frustration and grief, but also for curiosity, beauty, humour and moments of unexpected discovery.
These are poems about blindness, but they are also poems about perception: about what we notice, what we remember, what we lose, and what we learn to see differently.
If you recognise something of your own story here, John hopes these poems offer comfort and companionship.
If they introduce you to a perspective that is new to you, he hopes they invite you to pause, listen, and become curious about another way of seeing.
Poems
Below are selected poems from a future publication — “Looking for the Electric Light Switch: a collection of blindness-enriched moments and musings”.
Artwork Collaboration
Severely Sheep Impaired
A collaboration between John Darker & David Johnson.
Severely Sheep Impaired is a collaborative, tactile and audio-focused artwork created by artist David Johnson and writer John Darker. The installation brings Darker’s poem of the same name into a multi-sensory exhibition format, combining sculpture, photography, tactile imagery, Braille, large print and audio description.
