Wendy Barker was born September 22, 1942, in Summit, New Jersey, but grew up in Phoenix and Tucson, Arizona. Between 1968 and 1982 she lived in Berkeley, California. She received her B.A. and M.A. from Arizona State University and her Ph.D. in 1981 from the University of California at Davis. Barker also taught high school English in Scottsdale, Arizona, between 1966–68 and in Berkeley, between 1968-72. She is married to the critic Steven G. Kellman. Her sixth full-length collection of poems is One Blackbird at a Time, winner of the John Ciardi Prize for Poetry. Her fourth chapbook is From the Moon, Earth is Blue of Nobel Prize-winning poet Rabindranath Tagore received the Sourette Diehl Fraser Award from the Texas Institute of Letters. Barker’s poems have appeared in such journals as Poetry, The American Scholar, The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, The Southern Poetry Review, The Gettysburg Review, Harpur Palate, The Marlboro Review, The Laurel Review, and Boulevard. Her poems have appeared in numerous anthologies, including The Best American Poetry 2013. Translations of Rabindranath Tagore have appeared in such places as Partisan Review, The Kenyon Review, Stand, Puerto del Sol, and The Hollins Critic. Translations of the Punjabi poetGurcharan Rampuri have appeared in The Toronto Review of Contemporary Writing Abroad. Personal essays have appeared in Poets & Writers, Southwest Review, and the online journal http://www.CerisePress.com. Recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rockefeller Foundation, her work has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Russian, and Bulgarian. One Blackbird at a Time, Alan Shapiro says, "is one of the most personable, entertaining and moving books of poetry I've read in a long time". Ken Prufer describes the poems as "rich, complex, and shimmering with energy and intelligence." "A wonderful book of poems" that are "full of ferocity and rapture, a joy to read," states Alicia Ostriker Barker's fifth full-length collection of poems, Nothing Between Us: The Berkeley Years, a novel in prose poems set in Berkeley in the sixties, has been described as “unforgettably moving” by Sandra M. Gilbert; “a captivating page-turner” by Alicia Ostriker; and an “exciting tribute to a decade of change” by Denise Duhamel.
Books
;Poems One Blackbird at a Time. From the Moon, Earth is Blue.
Far Out: Poems of the 60s, co-edited with David M. Parsons.
Nothing Between Us: The Berkeley Years.
Things of the Weather . Between Frames . Poems from Paradise. Poems’ Progress . Way of Whiteness: Poems.
Eve Remembers . Let the Ice Speak: Poems. Winter Chickens and Other Poems. ;Translations Tagore: Final Poems, co-translated with Saranindranath Tagore. ;Criticism The House Is Made of Poetry: The Art of Ruth Stone, co-edited with Sandra M. Gilbert. Lunacy of Light: Emily Dickinson and the Experience of Metaphor.
Awards
John Ciardi Prize for Poetry, BkMk Press, 2015. Runner-Up, Del Sol Press Poetry Prize 2008. Finalist, James Wright Poetry Award, Mid-American Review, 2008. Violet Crown Book Award, 2007. Literature Fellowship in Poetry, Writers’ League of Texas, 2003.
Gemini Ink Literary Excellence Award, 2002.
Sourette Diehl Fraser Award for Literary Translation, Texas Institute of Letters, 2002.
Fulbright Senior Lecturer, St. Kliment OhridskiUniversity of Sofia, Bulgaria, Fall 2000. Violet Crown Book Award, 2000. Citation for Excellence Award, Cal Aggie Alumni Association, University of California at Davis, 1995. Rockefeller Foundation Residency Fellowship, Bellagio Study and Conference Center, 1994. The Mary Elinore Smith Poetry Prize, The American Scholar, 1991. Distinguished Citizen Award, City of San Antonio, 1991. Arts and Letters Award, Friends of the San Antonio Library, 1991. Ithaca House Poetry Series Award, 1990. National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry, 1986. Southwest Women Artists and Writers Award for Poetry, 1982.
