John Barton

John Barton (born 1957) is a Canadian poet.

Early life Barton was born in Edmonton, Alberta, in 1957 and was raised in Calgary.

Education Barton studied at the University of Alberta, University of Calgary, University of Quebec, University of Victoria, University of Western Ontario and Columbia University in New York.

He originally wanted to study architecture but instead enrolled in English and French courses in the Faculté Saint-Jean and the University of Alberta, where he studied from 1975 to 1978. He transferred to the University of Victoria, where he graduated with a BA in Creative Writing in 1981. He started but not finish an MFA in Writing at Columbia University in New York in 1983. In 1986, he graduated from the University of Western Ontario, with a Master of Library and Information Science. He later studied Book Editing at the Banff Publishing Centre in 1994 and magazine editing with Magazines Canada in 2005.

Barton studied poetry with Eli Mandel, Gary Geddes, Robin Skelton, Joseph Brodsky, and Daniel Halpern.

Career Barton has published twelve books of poetry.

Since 1980 his poems have appeared in seventy-five magazines and thirty anthologies in North America, the United Kingdom, India, and Australia. from 2004 to 2018 and was poetry editor for Winnipeg's Signature Editions from 2006 5 to 2008. He co-founded Arc's Poem of the Year Contest in 1996. He was writer-in-residence at the Saskatoon Public Library from September 2008 to May 2008. During the 2010/11 academic year, he was writer-in-residence at University of New Brunswick and in the fall 2015 term, at the Memorial University of Newfoundland. Additionally he worked as a librarian and editor for five museums in Ottawa between 1986 and 2003. He has lived in Victoria, British Columbia since 2004.

He and Billeh Nickerson co-edited the anthology Seminal: The Anthology of Canada’s Gay Male Poets, published in 2007 by Arsenal Pulp Press. In 2012, his Selected Poems were published by Nightwood. In 2020, The Essential Douglas LePan, which he edited and introduced, won the eLit Award (Gold Category) for Poetry. Lost Family: A Memoir was nominated for the Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry in 2021, the same year he was declared a Gay Icon by The Fiddlehead. In 2022, he was the main editor of Best Canadian Poetry 2023 for Biblioasis.

Awards 1986: Patricia Hackett Prize, University of Western Australia 1988: Archibald Lampman Award, for West of Darkness: Emily Carr, a self-portrait 1995: Archibald Lampman Award, for Designs from the Interior 1995: Ottawa Book Award 1999: Archibald Lampman Award, for Sweet Ellipsis 2003: CBC Literary Award (Second Prize) 2006: National Magazine Award (Silver) 2019: Victoria's Poet Laureate 2021: Life Member, League of Canadian Poets 2020: eLit Award for Poetry

Works

Poetry 1981: A Poor Photographer. Sono Nis Press 1984: Hidden Structure. Ekstasis Editions 1987: West of Darkness: Emily Carr, a Self-Portrait. Penumbra Press 1990: Great Men. Quarry Press 1993: 1994: 1998: 1999: 2001: 2006: West of Darkness: Emily Carr, A Self-Portrait / A l’ombre de l’ouest: Emily Carr, un autoportrait. First bilingual edition. BuschekBooks 2009: Hymn. Brick Books 2012: For the Boy with the Eyes of the Virgin: Selected Poems. Nightwood Editions 2014: Polari. Goose Lane Editions 2020: Lost Family: A Memoir. Signal Editions

Chapbooks 1995: Destinations, Leaving the Map, above/ground press 1999: Oxygen, above/ground press 1999: 2003: 2004 Asymmetries, Frog Hollow Press Book One: House of the Present; Book Two: The Strata. 2012: Balletomane: The Program Notes of Lincoln Kirstein. JackPine 2016: Reframing Paul Cadmus: Pictures from an Exhibition. above/ground press 2018: Windsock. Frog Hollow Press 2018: Visible But Not Seen: Queer Expression in the Age of Equity. Anstruther Press 2024: Stopwatch. Emergency Flash Mob Press

Essays 2019: We Are Not Avatars: Essays, Memoirs, Manifestos. Palimpsest Press

Criticism "Trends in Canadian Poetry", Educational Insights, 11(1)

Editor 1998 2007 2oyThe Malahat at Fifty: Canada's Iconic Literary Magazine, 2017. University of Victoria Libraries The Essential Douglas LePan, 2019. The Porcupine's Quill The Essential Derk Wynand, 2020. The Porcupine's Quill Best Canadian Poetry 2023, 2022. Biblioasis