PoetryMagazine.com Editor's Featured Poet Judith Barrington

Judith Barrington
USA

Judith is the author of three poetry collections, a prizewinning memoir, and a text on writing literary memoir. The poetry books are: Horses and the Human Soul, History and Geography, and Trying to be an Honest Woman. She has also recorded a CD of selected poems titled Harvest. Prose books are: Lifesaving: A Memoir (winner of the Lambda Book Award and finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir), and Writing the Memoir: From Truth to Art which is used in numerous writing programs.
Her work has been included in many anthologies, including The Long Journey: Pacific Northwest Poets, The Stories That Shape Us: Twenty Women Write About the West, A Formal Feeling Comes, From Here We Speak: An Anthology of Oregon Poetry, The House on Via Gombito, and Hers 3. Her poems and memoirs have been published in many literary journals, including Americas Review, Kenyon Review, ZYZZVA, The American Voice, Poetry London, 13th Moon, The GSU Review, Sonora Review, Left Bank, and The Chattahoochee Review. She also regularly reviews books for newspapers and literary magazines.
Her awards include the Andrés Berger Award for Creative Nonfiction, the Dulwich Festival International Poetry Contest, and the Stewart H. Holbrook Award for outstanding contributions to Oregon's literary life. She is the co-founder of The Flight of the Mind Writing Workshops, which for seventeen years provided two week-long sessions on the McKenzie River, Oregon, bringing together outstanding teachers and participants from all over the U.S. She is one of the founders of Soapstone, a Writing Retreat for Women located in Oregon's Coast Range and serves as President of the Board.
In 1999 she collaborated with New York sculptor Nancy Azara on an artist's book, providing a long poem in six parts entitled "Passages." The work was exhibited at Soho's Donahue/Sosinski Gallery (New York) in January of 2000 and praised by the New York Times. The book was also shown at the Froelick Gallery in Portland, Oregon, in November of 2001.
Other collaborations include writing the librettos for Mother of Us All (released on CD from Omni Records) and Dreamers: A Winter Solstice Extravaganza, both with music by David York. Several of Barrington's poems have been set to music by composers including Salvador Brotons, Margaret Moore, and Christopher Michael Wicks.
Over the past twenty five years Judith has taught creative writing at various universities and at many summer writing workshops including the Port Townsend Writers' Conference at Centrum, Haystack, Split Rock, Fishtrap, the Ashland Writing Conference, the Hassayampa Writers' Conference in Prescott, Arizona, and Flight of the Mind. She is also a web mentor for the Split Rock Arts Program of the University of Minnesota.
In Europe, she has taught and given readings at The Poetry School, the Barbican Centre, The South Bank, The Arvon Foundation, and The Poetry Cafe, as well as various arts festivals and universities. She led a workshop for a week at the IndianKing Arts Centre in Cornwall and most recently a workshop on memoir writing at Almàssera Vella near Alicante, Spain.
From time to time, Judith reviews books for various publications including The Oregonian and The Women's Review of Books. She also writes occasional op ed columns and opinion pieces for the Sunday Oregonian.

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