On Native Ground: Memoirs and Impressions (Volume 23) (American Indian Literature and Critical Studies Series) - Softcover

Barnes, Jim

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0806140925 ISBN 13: 9780806140926

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 2009

Synopsis

On Native Ground takes us from Jim Barnes’s boyhood in rural southeastern Oklahoma during the Great Depression and World War II through his mature years as an internationally recognized poet. Of Choctaw and Welsh ancestry, Barnes is often identified as a Native American poet. He emphasizes his desire to be recognized for his art, not his blood. Yet he speaks eloquently here of his attachment to his “native ground,” the Choctaw region in Oklahoma—for him “the land where memory dwells.” This edition features a new postscript by the author.

About this title

About the Author:

Jim Barnes is retired as Distinguished Professor of English and Creative Writing at Brigham Young University. He and his wife, Cora Barnes McKown, currently reside in Atoka, Oklahoma, on the McKown family ranch, and in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

From Library Journal:

From the simplicity of life in rural Oklahoma in the years surrounding World War II to the lyrical beauty of a villa in the Italian countryside, Barnes paints pictures of his life in essays and poetry. Of Welsh and Choctaw heritage, he is an issish ibakaha, a mixed-blood, equally at home in both cultures but refusing to be defined by either. Raised in and around several small towns, he offers recollections of places and events that convey beautifully a sense of history and way of life shared by much of rural America in the Thirties and Forties. The second half of his book focuses on his development as a poet and essayist and submersion in world literature. While nostalgic for a simpler time and place, he is also clearly enervated by and enamored of the writers of Europe and of his teaching. His goal of being recognized for his art rather than his blood is well on its way to being achieved in this memoir.?Lisa A. Mitten, Univ. of Pittsburgh Lib.
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About this edition

• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0806140925
• ISBN 13: 9780806140926
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 296