PoetryMagazine.com Editor's Featured Poet David Barnes

PoetryMagazine.com

David Barnes
AUSTRALIA

According to his publisher and reviewer, David Barnes was born in 1943 (with a whole litany of medical conditions including a debilitating spinal injury which makes movement and long periods of writing difficult) .David doesn’t expect to write much more. He came to poetry by a long route. Leaving school at 13, he worked for 11 years as a carpenter in Melbourne before traveling throughout the outback as a driller, trench-digger, stockman, petrol-pumper, cook and playing self-taught guitar at folk festivals. This morphed into writing, poetry and editing the DownUnder and Numbat websites. He and his wife Libby met in Alice Springs but they settled in Perth in ’72 where David sold real-estate and they had a son. When Libby died in ’96, David had to raise Daniel alone on a disability pension. Amazing that with all this, David also continued to write his own poetry, founded Poetry DownUnder and edited and encouraged other poets like me. Small wonder that he hasn’t had time to be a prolific poet or that only now (with the help of fellow WA poet Janet Jackson) has he been able to produce a collection. The result is an intense collection of the impressions of one man’s life.

a wounded woman's perspective

late, in the aftermath of divorce a lonely woman felt a spark alight from eye to eye, it was real; at a random chance gathering how many people let it bloom let it sing, like a rose rising opening in the morning sun what do they perceive? depends I suppose, the eyes, curve of the mouth a soft smile; a nucleus of electricity from him - her: primarily I think it is the life force that flows outward from the individual one never knows if nurtured by both, then fate is with her – with him- If it is not then a web will be wound round you again enthralled in a happiness we all long for; you can't escape you let the cards fall into play; and pray fate to be kind.

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