Background
Barnes, Jim Weaver was born on December 22, 1933 in Summerfield, Oklahoma, United States. Son of Austin Oscar and Bessie Vernon (Adams) Barnes.
(Few poets in America today can write as solemnly and trut...)
Few poets in America today can write as solemnly and truthfully as Jim Barnes about the heritage of America, a heritage as wide as the continent itself. Jim Barnes's aesthetic is vivid throughout these poems. A high sense of loss pervades the book, but Barnes's strong-willed persona never regrets what has passed. Instead, the persona gains strength from it. What has come to be his signature in four earlier books of poetry and remains his mark in The Sawdust War is essentially where his art lies: a strong sense of loss, of redemption coming out of loss, of place both geographical and spiritual.
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( On Native Ground takes us from Jim Barnes’s boyhood in ...)
On Native Ground takes us from Jim Barnes’s boyhood in rural southeastern Oklahoma during the Great Depression and World War II through his mature years as an internationally recognized poet. Of Choctaw and Welsh ancestry, Barnes is often identified as a Native American poet. He emphasizes his desire to be recognized for his art, not his blood. Yet he speaks eloquently here of his attachment to his “native ground,” the Choctaw region in Oklahoma—for him “the land where memory dwells.” This edition features a new postscript by the author.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0806128984/?tag=2022091-20
( Many of the poems are set in a recognizable epoch, thos...)
Many of the poems are set in a recognizable epoch, those years of World War II, on the home front, and after. Notable in these poems is a high sense of loss that has been rendered tenable by the kind of lyric narrative that Yeats knew so well. The poet affirms for us the passing of the many things we never really held, though we may have thought we did. These poems are not talking poems. They sing. They chant. They leave indelible tracks across our eyes. The book begins with a kind of quiet precision found in Emily Dickinson, moves into haunting narrative lyrics, and ends in the realm of the hard history of self and place. And everywhere there is evidence of the poet's compassion, without evidence of the poet himself.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0911198962/?tag=2022091-20
writer comparative literature educator
Barnes, Jim Weaver was born on December 22, 1933 in Summerfield, Oklahoma, United States. Son of Austin Oscar and Bessie Vernon (Adams) Barnes.
Bachelor, Southeastern Oklahoma State University, 1964. Master of Arts, University Arkansas, 1966. Doctor of Philosophy, University Arkansas, 1972.
Lumberjack Guistina Brothers Lumber Company, Eugene, Oregon, 1954-1959. Instructor English Northeastern Oklahoma State University, Tahlequah, Oklahoma, 1965-1968. Professor comparative literature Northeast Missouri State University, Kirksville, since 1970.
Editor The Chariton Review, Northeast Missouri State University, 1975-1989. Member poetry panel, National Endowment for Arts, Washington, 1991-1992, literature committee Missouri Arts Council, St. Louis, 1980-1983.
( On Native Ground takes us from Jim Barnes’s boyhood in ...)
(Few poets in America today can write as solemnly and trut...)
( Many of the poems are set in a recognizable epoch, thos...)
(A book of poetry by Jim Barnes.)
With United States National Guard, 1950-1951. Member Modern Language Association (delegate at large 1980-1981), Association Writing Programs, Coordinating Council Literature Magazines, Beast Fable Society (vice president since 1988).
Married Cora FloDell McKown, June 30, 1964 (divorced 1973). Married Carolyn Louise Turpin, November 23, 1973. Children: Bret Alan, Blake Anthony.