Special thanks to the University of Oklahoma for providing the video of Jim Barnes' reading for the Mark Allen Everett Poetry Series.
Jim Barnes
Oklahoma State Poet Laureate, 2009-2011
No art is more important to me than poetry, for poetry makes everything happen.—Jim Barnes
Jim Weaver McKown Barnes, of Choctaw and Welsh ancestry, grew up in Summerfield, Oklahoma. His non-fiction prose book, On Native Ground: Memoirs and Impressions, reflects Oklahoma and Native cultures and won the American Book Award in 1998. He has authored several volumes of poetry, including The Sawdust War: Poems, which won the Oklahoma Book Award in 1993; Paris: Poems; On a Wing of the Sun: Three Volumes of Poetry; and his most recent work, Visiting Picasso (University of Illinois Press, 2007).
Links to Additional Resources
Poetry by Jim Barnes
Past Poets Laureate