Coleman Barks, retired UGA professor of creative writing and American poetry, has a new volume of poetry, Hummingbird Sleep. The poems move associatively between Barks’ personal experience and his extensive reading, weaving together a wild and eclectic range of material. A discussion of Plotinus, Barks’ appearance on PBS NewsHour, a note Keats once left on Wordsworth’s mantelpiece, a splinter in the heel and a quote from the Upanishads all make their way into Barks’ most recent poems, which achieve intimacy and expansiveness at the same time. Author Naomi Shihab Nye called Barks’ book “one of the most moving meditations on aging, living and dying I’ve ever read.
“These poems will befriend, comfort and delight you,” she said. “Something very magical happens as Coleman Barks overlays dreaming and waking life … memory and present … you can taste these poems while reading them.”
