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This is Part 2 (of 2) of my essay, “Great Audiences for Great Poetry,” adapted from a 2009 speech I gave at AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs) when I was president of the Poetry Foundation. The rather insipid title of my remarks, “Great Audiences for Great Poetry,” is adapted from Whitman’s famous dictum, […]
This is Part 1 (of 2) of my essay, “Great Audiences for Great Poetry,” adapted from a 2009 speech I gave at AWP (Association of Writers & Writing Programs) when I was president of the Poetry Foundation. Twenty years ago I moved to Chicago and started work at the Poetry Foundation. I remember visiting historic […]
This is Part 5 (of 5) of my essay, “Hemingway Among the Modernists,” which was originally a lecture I gave at the request of the Hemingway Foundation on July 21, 2012. Here is the question that obsessed Hemingway over the long arc of his novels and stories: What can heroism mean in an age where it […]
This is Part 4 (of 5) of my essay, “Hemingway Among the Modernists,” which was originally a lecture I gave at the request of the Hemingway Foundation on July 21, 2012. We have been talking about how Hemingway the young writer absorbed the writing techniques of Modernism in his Paris years, and made them his own […]
This is Part 3 (of 5) of my essay, “Hemingway Among the Modernists,” which was originally a lecture I gave at the request of the Hemingway Foundation on July 21, 2012. The case for placing Hemingway, in his formative years, among the early Modernists does not lie primarily in the poetry he published. Through the offices […]
This is Part 2 (of 5) of my essay, “Hemingway Among the Modernists,” which was originally a lecture I gave at the request of the Hemingway Foundation on July 21, 2012. Modernism in the opening decades of the 20th century did not have the crisp outlines of the literary movement we see today. Maybe no literary […]
This is Part 1 (of 5) of my essay, “Hemingway Among the Modernists,” which was originally a lecture I gave at the request of the Hemingway Foundation on July 21, 2012.
I’m pleased to offer a glimpse inside my new ebook, Iron’s Keeping, which tells the story — in poems — of my experience as a former U.S. Naval officer serving in Vietnam. It’s free to download for my newsletter subscribers. The ebook contains 13 poems first published, beautifully, in a private letterpress edition by Carol Blinn at Warwick Press […]
John Barr was named to the long list of candidates identified as potential recipients of the 2024 PEN/Voelcker Award for a Poetry Collection. John Barr was cited for The Boxer of Quirinal, published by Red Hen Press. The award is designated for a poet “whose distinguished collection of poetry represents a notable and accomplished literary presence.” “I’m overjoyed […]
At the outset of my remarks I said that I would look more broadly at the subject of poetry and responsibility. For me, that starts with the question of poetry and personal responsibility, then moves to poetry and civic, or public, responsibility.
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