Dick Barnes

Dick Barnes was born Richard Gordon Barnes on November 5, 1932, in San Bernardino, California. He received his BA in writing from Pomona College in 1954, an MA in English and American literature from Harvard University in 1955, and a doctorate of philosophy in Renaissance literature at Claremont Graduate School.

Barnes is the author of Few and Far Between (Ahsahta Press, 1994) and has translated the work of Jorge Luis Borges with fellow Pomona College colleague and poet, Robert Mezey, who would also edit a collection of Barnes’s posthumously published poems, titled A Word Like Fire: Selected Poems (Handsel Books, 2005).

Regarding Barnes’s work, poet Donald Hall wrote:

Barnes, who died five years ago, was little known in the East, but he was a man of vast energy … Plain language about the Western scene makes the best lines of these poems. They are original not just because of what they look at. He details the natural world, and the world of animals. He is a poet of mysterious matters of the spirit. He is a poet of humor, and his ears are as open as his eyes.

Barnes returned to Pomona College as a literature professor in 1961, where he remained until 1998 as a professor emeritus. He died in Claremont, California, on May 15, 2000.