Tony Barnstone

Poet

Whittier, CA
California US

Author's Bio

Tony Barnstone is Professor of English and Environment Studies at Whittier College and the author of 20 books and a music CD. He has served as the Visiting Distinguished Professor in Creative Writing in the MFA Program at Bowling Green State University and as the Visiting Professor of Translation in the Ph.D. Program at the University of California, Irvine. He has a Masters in English and Creative Writing and Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of California at Berkeley. In addition to Pulp Sonnets, his books of poetry include Beast in the ApartmentTongue of War: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki, winner of the John Ciardi Prize in Poetry; The Golem of Los Angeles which won the Poets Prize and the Benjamin Saltman Award in Poetry; Sad Jazz: Sonnets; and Impure: Poems by Tony Barnstone, and a chapbook of poems titled Naked Magic (Main Street Rag). He is also a distinguished co-translator of Chinese poetry and literary prose and an editor of literary textbooks. His books in these areas include Chinese Erotic Poems; The Anchor Book of Chinese PoetryOut of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese Poetry; Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Poems of Wang WeiThe Art of Writing: Teachings of the Chinese MastersThe River Merchant’s WifeTwenty Sonnets for Mother;  and the textbooks Literatures of Asia, Africa and Latin AmericaLiteratures of Asia, and Literatures of the Middle East. His bilingual Spanish/English selected poems, Buda en Llamas: Antología poética (1999-2012)appeared in 2014. He has also co-editedthe anthologies Dead and Undead Poemsand Monster Verse.  His CD of folk rock/blues songs (in collaboration with singer-songwriters Ariana Hall and John Clinebell, based upon Tongue of War and titled Tokyo’s Burning: World War II Songs) is available on Amazon.com, Rhapsody, and CD Baby.  His forthcoming books are a co-translation of the Urdu poet Ghalib (White Pine Press), the anthology Republic of Apples, Democracy of Oranges: New Eco-Poetry from China and the United States(University of Hawaii Press, co-edited) and an edition of the collected poems of Mary Ellen Solt (Sinewave Press).

His website is

www.whittier.edu/academics/english/barns...  

You can contact him at:  tbarnstone [at] whittier.edu

Publications & Prizes

Books:
Pulp Sonnets (Tupelo Press, 2015)
,
Beast in the Apartment (Sheep Meadow Press, 2014)
,
Buda en Llamas/Buddha in Flames (Ediciones El Tucan de Virginia, 2014)
,
Tongue of War: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki (BkMk Press-UMKC, 2009)
,
The Golem of Los Angeles (Red Hen Press, 2008)
,
Chinese Erotic Poems (Everyman, 2007)
,
Sad Jazz: Sonnets (Sheep Meadow Press, 2005)
,
The Anchor Book of Chinese Poetry: The Full 300 Year Tradition (Anchor Books, 2005)
,
Literatures of Asia (Prentice Hall, 2003)
,
Impure (University of Florida Press, 1999)
,
Literatures of Asia, Africa and Latin America (Prentice Hall, 1998)
,
The Art of Writing: Teachings of the Chinese Masters (Shambhala, 1996)
,
Out of the Howling Storm: The New Chinese Poetry (Wesleyan University Press, 1993)
,
Laughing Lost in the Mountains: Poems of Wang Wei (University Press of New England, 1991)
Prizes won: 

Among his awards are the Poets Prize, Grand Prize of the Strokestown International Poetry Festival, the Pushcart Prize in Poetry, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the California Arts Council, the Benjamin Saltman Award in Poetry and the John Ciardi Prize in Poetry.

Personal Favorites

Favorite authors: 
James Wright, Georg Trakl, Rainer Marie Rilke, Federico Garcia Lorca, Jorge Luis Borges, Alexandra Pizarnik, Sylvia Plath, William Carlos Williams, Constantine Cavafy, Frank O'Hara, and so many more....

More Information

Gives readings: 
Yes
Travels for readings: 
Yes
Identifies as: 
Greek American, Jewish
Prefers to work with: 
Any
Fluent in: 
English
Born in: 
Middletown
Raised in: 
Bloomington, IN
Indiana
Please note: All information in the Directory is provided by the listed writers or their representatives.
Last update: May 02, 2019