Tina Barr

The landscape of Tina Barr’s childhood on the north shore of Long Island, with its harbors, beaches, and suburban sixties plenty, colors the background of some of her poems. It was there she negotiated the death of her younger brother, her father’s emotional instability, her mother’s depression. She explored alternative modes of being, through her sexuality and through experiences outside the cage of social expectations.

Poetry is the vehicle Barr used to order and confront repressed knowledge. Travel in the world mirrored her inward road. Time spent in Egypt, along with an ongoing interest in ancient history, religion, art and myth is reflected in her work.

Tina Barr received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College, her MFA from Columbia University’s School of the Arts in New York in 1982, and her MA (1987) and PhD (1995) degrees in English from Temple University in Philadelphia. Tina Barr’s third book, Green Target, won the Barrow Street Press Book Prize (2018) and her second, Kaleidoscope, was published by Iris Press in 2015.

Awards:

2005 Individual Artist Fellowship from the Tennessee Arts Commission