Jim Weaver McKown Barnes was born in 1933 and raised in Summerfield, Oklahoma. He is of Choctaw and Welsh descent. Before becoming an accomplished author and poet Barnes worked as a lumberjack after high school for ten years. He attended college at Southeastern Oklahoma State University where he earned his B.A. Later he went on to earn is M.A. and Ph.D at the University of Arkansas for Comparative Literature. From 1970 to 2003 Barnes was a Professor of Comparative Literature and Writer-in-Residence at Truman State University. He served as Distinguished Professor of English at Brigham Young University from 2003 to 2006. As of today he's Professor of Comparative Literature at Northeast Missouri State University. Barnes has accepted seven fellowships …show more content…
He received an Oklahoma Book Award for The Sawdust War (1993) and received an American Book Award for On Native Ground (1998, 2000). He was also a founding editor of the Chariton Review Press from 1975 throughout 2006. Over the years Barnes has published well over 500 poems and translations in over 100 journals. Some of his poems that have stuck out to me were Great Tornado Plains, Heartland, Three Songs from a Texas Oilfield …show more content…
He draws from the past to tell stories in his poems for us to read and hopefully hear. In Great Tornado Plains, he takes words from the ancient Roman and Greeks symbolize his meanings. He uses a pillar to symbolize and embody the past as he describes how the pillar looks by using Roman coin and mosaics from the Byzantine empire. He uses the term “fluted stone” to describe the look and texture of the “prairie acropolis” (Greek citadel). “Prairie” is used to show that the surrounding area is flat and separate from civilization in this time he is describing. He uses that symbolism he describes to give us a visual of what the pillar looks like as it crashes down. Barnes uses the aftermath as an term as well. He uses the word “artifacts” to describe a past that has already taken its place in time. Its as if he is saying that time makes artifacts of us all over the centuries. Barnes seems to be saying that the past is a beautiful thing in all its glory but even that can be overtaken by
Although the chosen writer’s style structure is similar in Saint Monkey and “Trilobites,” the writer’s voice and word choice is different. The structure that an author has chosen is important for a author because of the way the story has happened. After reading the biographies of both Breece D’J Pancake and Jacinda Townsend, I realized that even growing up in different parts of the region is different. Both authors’ of Saint Monkey and “Trilobites” grew up in different states and had different lifestyles which has an effect on the writer’s writing
The author was born in Washington D.C. on May 1, 1901. Later, he received a bachelor’s degree from Williams College where he studied traditional literature and explored music like Jazz and the Blues; then had gotten his masters at Harvard. The author is a professor of African American English at Harvard University. The author’s writing
In the book Storm Over Texas, by Joel H. Silbey the critical controversy of North vs. South is displayed. The book goes into great detail of the wild moments leading into the Civil War, the political dysfunction that ran throughout Texas, and many reasons the American Civil War sparked up in the first place. This book truly captives great Texas history and has valid information and points of our states different point of views on history.
Connell, Barry O'., Dictionary of Literary Biography, Native American Writers of the United States. Ed. Kenneth M. Roemer. Vol. 175. Detroit. Gale Research Co., 1997.
Schultz, Elizabeth. "African and Afro-American Roots in Contemporary Afro-American Literature: The Difficult Search for Family Origins." Studies in American Fiction 8.2 (1980): 126-145.
Gates, Henry Louis, and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. Print.
Baldwin, James. “Notes of a Native Son.” 1995. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84.
James, Johson Weldon. Comp. Henry Louis. Gates and Nellie Y. McKay. The Norton Anthology of African American Literature. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2004. 832. Print.
Baldwin, James. “Notes of a Native Son.” 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1998. 63-84.
In James S. Hirsch’s book about Rubin "Hurricane" Cater, Hurricane, the author describes how Carter was wrongfully imprisoned and how he managed to become free. Hirsch tells about the nearly impossible battle for Carter and his friend John Artis for freedom and justice. Both, Carter and Artis, were convicted of a triple homicide, and both were innocent.
Baldwin, James. “Notes of a Native Son.” 1955. James Baldwin: Collected Essays. Ed. Toni Morrison. New York: Library of America, 1988. 63-84.
3. Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 51: Afro-American Writers from the Harlem Renaissance to 1940. A Bruccoli Clark Layman Book. Edited by Trudier Harris, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Gale Group, 1987. pp. 133-145.
O'Connor, Flannery. Good Country People. Literature an Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, And Drama. X. J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. Longman. 2002. (247-261)
Murphy, Bernice M. Shirley Jackson: Essays on the Literary Legacy. Jefferson, NC: McFarland &, 2005. Print.
Margolies, Edward. “History as Blues: Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.” Native Sons: A Critical Study of Twentieth-Century Negro American Authors. J.B. Lippincott Company, 1968. 127-148. Rpt. in Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Daniel G. Marowski and Roger Matuz. Vol. 54. Detroit: Gale, 1989. 115-119. Print.