Through the Spoken Word - Reflections on the Sacred

Poetry Reading and Conversation
Willis Barnstone, Aliki Barnstone, and Tony Barnstone
Presented in partnership with Saint Julian Press

Poetry offers a window to the Holy that dialogue cannot, reflecting essential human truths in artful form. Join a unique opportunity to engage with three acclaimed and evocative poets from the Barnstone family in a sacred place that is also rich with family history. The Rothko Chapel was designed, in part, by the architect Howard Barnstone, Willis’ brother. Each of the poets will read from their collections, examining their concepts of the Divine and challenging our own, as well as engage in conversation with each other and the audience.

Music will be performed before and during the program by Max Dyer, cellist. A reception and book signing follow the program.

About the poets:
Willis Barnstone is a poet, memoirist, translator, Hispanist and comparatist, who has written more than 70 books of scholarship and poetry. A New Testament and Gnostic scholar, he published “The Restored New Testament,” including the Gnostic gospels of Thomas, Mary and Judas. He is a Guggenheim Fellow, the distinguished professor of Comparative Literature Emeritus and senior scholar in the Institute of Biblical and Literary Studies at Indiana University. He has also received the Emily Dickinson Award, the W.H. Auden Award and a special citation for translation from the Pen/Book of the Month Club.

Aliki Barnstone is a poet, translator, critic, editor and visual artist. She is the author of eight books of poetry, most recently “Dwelling.” Her first book of poems, “The Real Tin Flower,” was published when she was 12 years old with a forward by Anne Sexton. She has been awarded a Senior Fulbright Fellowship, the Silver Pen Award from the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Literature Fellowship in Poetry and a residency at the Anderson Center at Tower View. She serves as Poet Laureate of Missouri and is Professor of English and Creative Writing at the University of Missouri.

Tony Barnstone is a poet, author, essayist and literary translator. In addition to his 18 published books, his work has appeared in dozens of American literary journals. His latest work, “Pulp Sonnets,” is a book of illustrated poetry based on 20 years of research into classic pulp fiction, Gothic literature, B movies and comic books, illustrated by Iranian artist Amin Mansouri. He is the Albert Upton Professor of English at Whittier College.

About the Series:
Concept of the Divine series provides a unique opportunity for speakers to share how their personal concept of the Divine has changed over time and shaped their lives, their service to the community, and views about their place in the cosmos.