Today we’d like to introduce you to John Barnes.
Hi John, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
At the age of 16, My 11-year-old sister died of Leukemia. On the morning of the funeral, I was in my bedroom, and in about 20 minutes, I wrote my first poem, which I read at the service that day. I wrote a few poems in high school and a collection of confessional poems in college while at the same time exploring the possibility of pursuing life as a writer or a poet.
At several points in my life, I dedicated myself to writing poetry. At the age of 20, I moved to Phoenix Arizona with a close friend to write poetry. After several months working as a dishwasher and writing very little due to the rigors of the job I returned to my hometown and also returned to college.
After obtaining an undergraduate degree and working several years as a computer programmer and System Administrator, I felt the call again to pursue poetry. My wife and I were planning a family, and we agreed that I would stay home and take care of the house and family while my wife became the provider.
During this period, I wrote a long poem called The Desert City and submitted many poems for publication, getting a few of them in print. I also frequented poetry open mic readings. But disappointed with a response to The Desert City when submitted for publication, I decided to return to System Administration work.
Again, later in my life, while still working I wrote many new poems and for a while, I focused on writing Haiku and Senryu. After retirement and having more time to read and write, I began to focus on writing again. Since 2020 I have dedicated myself to reading and writing poetry, and again submitting poetry for publication as well as attending various open mic readings. I have also been a featured reader at a venue called ArtNewCo.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not, what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
My poetry has evolved over the years. I would write for a while, in a certain style or with a certain inspiration and then I would stop for up to a year or more, having said what was on my heart. The next time I would return to poetry I would find a new voice or a new style or form to write in. And I would express myself in this way.
When I wrote The Desert City, I had had lucid dreams for about a month, and I kept a dream journal. It was my desire to create a poem using many of those dreams. I borrowed the form of The Fairie Queen by Edmund Spencer, and I wrote 24 stanzas. It took me 3 months of full-time effort. I was happy with the result, and I submitted it to American Poetry Review. When it was returned without comment, I felt this was the best I could do, and it wasn’t good enough. So, I decided the thing to do was to go back to work.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My first introduction to the Sonnet form was in my Senior High School English class. I was especially impressed by the sonnets of John Keats. It was a form that I wanted to master. I wrote a few love sonnets while I was in High School to my girlfriend at the time; always in the back of my mind was the desire to write more and to write them better.
Things happened in my life, and I got married to a woman who also appreciated poetry. She introduced me to the sonnets of Edna St. Vincent Millay. In the 1990’s I was writing poetry, and I wrote a few more sonnets. They were hard to write, and I revised them over weeks until I was happy enough with them. Until one day, I wrote a sonnet in my head on my way home from a poetry open mic. I called it Lambridar. That poem I felt really captured something. But it was the last sonnet I was to write for several years.
Then about 3 years ago, I started writing poetry again. I had been collecting books with sonnets in them since I got married, with the intention of reading them someday. Well, I felt the time had come. I read Millay’s Collected Sonnets carefully, repeatedly. I read sonnet sequences from the Elizabethan Era. I read the sonnets of Petrarch. I read most of the sonnets of Wordsworth. I read the sonnets of Shakespeare. I read sonnet sequences from many time periods. And as I was reading, I was also writing. I had the inspiration to write sonnets, and I could write a decent sonnet in about an hour. I would put them on my computer and after a month or so I would look through what I had written and revise them. I would continue to do this until I was satisfied.
By this point, I was submitting these poems for publication. I had learned that getting published requires patience and determination. I was thrilled to get one of them published in the longest continuously running journal of formal verse in North America. That made me happy, but what I was really proud of was winning the Quarterly Award for that issue of The Lyric.
Is there anyone you’d like to thank or give credit to?
My Ex-wife appreciated my poetry and gave me the opportunity to write full-time while she provided for the family. She is also an excellent critic and offered helpful advice on my work.
I dated a woman named Twila Tardif for about a year, and she and I spent time writing poetry back and forth to each other. She gave me excellent feedback on my poems and made many helpful suggestions.
Bruce Haliburton has helped to promote me as a poet in many ways, and he has encouraged me to continue to write and to tell my story to others.
Anna Ivanovna was very supportive and encouraging, inspiring me to write many many poems.
Debra Rymer has inspired many poems and also challenged me to write free verse again. She has introduced me to a number of poets, and together we have attended countless open mics. We were co-featured poets at one of them.
And my mother has offered me encouragement and has taken pride in my accomplishments.
Contact Info:
- Website: johnbarnespoetry.com
Image Credits
Stephanie Matthews
