Aliki Barnstone was educated at Brown University
(B.A. and M.A.) and at the University of California, Berkeley (Ph.D.). Her
volume of poems, The Real Tin Flower, introduced by Anne Sexton
(Macmillan), was published when she was twelve years old. Her poems have
appeared in Poetry, New Letters, The New York Times,
Ms., Agni, Chicago Review, The Antioch Review,
and other journals, and she is co-editor of the anthology A Book of
Women Poets from Antiquity to Now (Schocken/Random House). At present
she is editing the forthcoming volume, Voices of Light: Women's
Spiritual Poetry from around the World (Shambhala). She teaches at the
University of Nevada at Las Vegas.
"There's a profound meditation in Madly in Love, a whirlwind of
snow and warmth, a persistent music that informs a retrained rage, and it
is such contrasts that propel the sweep and swell of this book. Each poem
is a honed, crafted collection of moments and pulsebeats in a landscape
where celebrations and confrontation are necessary: 'bright snow' and
'smart misery' are witnessed by the same merciful eyes."
---Yusef Komunyakaa
"For Aliki Barnstone, poetry seems a natural medium. The vision and
cadences of these poems suggests a sensibility for which poetry is as
inevitable and necessary as breathing or eating. It is no surprise to
read, at the conclusion of one poem (and a poem largely about despair!):
'I can spit out hatred for the prescribers / as surely as I've been
cooking up / this poem for a long time and today / I sit at my feast and
enjoy every bite." Pleasure, wonder, anger, and moral passion are here,
and the imagination that can write a poem called 'Love Poem' and make it
fresh. This is a remarkable first book."
---Robert Pinsky
"All of a sudden I understand why I like Aliki Barnstone's poems so
much. They remind me of the one she has studied most--shall we call her
master--that Emily Dickinson. Not in the forms, not, as such, in the
music, and not in the references; but in that weird intimacy, that eerie
closeness, that absolute confession of soul. Once you understand
this, you begin to see the connection. It piles up after that. In
Barnstone, (too) the two worlds are intensely present, and the voice
moves back and forth between them. She has the rare art of distance and
closeness. It gives her her fine music, her wisdom, her form. She is a
fine poet."
---Gerald Stern
"Madly in Love is beautiful poetry. These poems are freighted
with longing and doubt but they are never naive. Passionate, unflinching
family stories and personal loss are here and yet the will to love breaks
all molds. In Aliki Barnstone's inimitable way, these poems rise spacious
as a clearing sky. Deep breaths of how it is."
---Ruth Stone
Publications
Voices of Light: Spiritual and Visionary Poems by Women around the World, from Ancient Sumeria to Now. Published by Shambhala in 1999. amazon.com
Trilogy by H. D.. Published by New Directions in 1998. amazon.com
Madly in Love. Published by Carnegie Mellon University Press in 1997. amazon.com
The Calvinist Roots of Modern America. Published by University Press of New England in 1997. amazon.com
A Book of Women Poets from Antiquity to Now. Published by Schocken Books in 1992. amazon.com
The Real Tin Flower: Poems about the World at Nine. Published by Crowell-Collier Press in 1968. amazon.com
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