Winning words

Former IU Distinguished Professor Willis Barnstone has published 46 books, taught during two wars and one cultural revolution and translated texts from Chinese, Spanish, French, Latin, ancient and modern Greek and Biblical Hebrew.\nAnd Barnstone was just the beginning of his family's poetic legacy.\nTwo of his children, Aliki and Tony, have followed in their father's footsteps. Together, Aliki and Tony have published 17 books, including translations, poetry compilations, textbooks, memoirs and anthologies. \nIU students will get a chance to hear all three in person at a public reading at 4 p.m on Thursday in the Lilly Library.\nFor both of the Barnstone children, poetry has always been a part of their lives.\n"(Barnstone) used to read me his poems, and I always heard poems from other authors," Aliki said. "(Award winning author) Ruth Stone's family and our family would sit around and do this poetry game, and we would all have to write our own poetry as children."\nThe trio has also collected many literary honors, including the Emily Dickinson Award from The Poetry Society of America, the Paumanok Poetry Award and the Randall Jarrell Poetry Prize and have won numerous poetry competitions. Barnstone has even been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize twice, once in 1960 for "From This White Island" and the second time in 1977 for "China Poems."\nWith such a long list of books and accolades, Barnstone said he is grateful for the success he has garnered over the years.\n"I've been writing for about 56 years, and I've written over 40 books. The world should be sick of me by now," Barnstone joked. "I think that I've been very lucky."\nBarnstone was a professor at IU for over 30 years while Aliki and Tony grew up in the Bloomington area. Despite their ties to Bloomington, none of the trio have done readings either at IU or any nearby location for over 20 years.\n"It's my first reading in 25 years, though I do give readings all over the country, this is the first time we'll all be reading in Bloomington," Barnstone said. "But I'm very pleased to be here, although I will always be alien wherever I am, I am quite fond of this area."\nAs for Tony, this is his first poetry reading in his hometown. While Bloomington readings have been scarce for all members of the Barnstone family, Tony said that he finds inspiration in his hometown.\n"Even though I left Bloomington after I got out of high school, it was the landscape of my imagination for the first 18 years of my life," Tony said. "There's a certain beauty of Bloomington that will never go away in my mind."\nThe quaint Bloomington city limits are not the only source of inspiration for the trio, as they all find inspiration from a large number of sources.\n"It comes out of a combination of reading and whatever I encounter in my daily life," Aliki said. "It's a combination of other art forms that transport me. I recently wrote a poem that was inspired by combining Plato and Jimi Hendrix."\nInspiration for poetry first entered Willis Barnstone's life over 50 years ago -- he attributes the beginning of his poetry career to a late night spark of illumination in his college dormitory. \n"I started writing poetry in the middle of the night when I was either 19 or 20 in Hawthorne Hall, (Bowdoin College) in Nathaniel Hawthorne's actual room at two in the morning, and 20 minutes later I wrote another poem," Barnstone said. "In the morning, I showed them to two of my friends, and they started comparing me to all of these great writers, and it got to my head, and ever since I've never looked back."\nAliki is an Expressive English professor at UNLV and actually started her writing career at the age of 12 with the release of "The Real Tin Flower." With the release of the collection, Barnstone said Aliki was more interested in her acquisition of a brand new bike from Sears than the printing of her first book.\n"Aliki was much more pleased about getting a bicycle than getting the proof of the book. She said, 'Maybe when I'm older I'll appreciate it more,'" Barnstone said. \nTony, an associate professor of creative writing and English at Whittier College, got his start at a comparatively late age -- as an undergraduate student. Despite his late start, Tony said that he values poetry because of its ability to create a reaction in a reader in a short period of time.\n"There's something really nice about how you can create this experience that can start some little engine up in the reader," Tony said. "(Poetry is) so much different than fiction because you have to wait to start the engine. It's the most condensed art."\nAll three poets agree that they find inspiration in each other and value each other's input.\n"We're always calling each other, and I steal from them, and they steal from me. We're all extraordinary pirates," Barnstone joked. "It's always good to have an immediate audience and get a reaction."\nAll three Barnstones said it will be nice to be back in the town that gave all of them some inspiration over the years. \n"I feel lucky to have grown up in Bloomington. It's a great place to grow up," Aliki said. "It is such a wonderfully creative and supportive community in so many ways. I will always have a lot of good things to say about Bloomington."\n-- Contact staff writer Dan Patrick at By Dan Patrick\nIndiana Daily Student\nFormer IU Distinguished Professor Willis Barnstone has published 46 books, taught during two wars and one cultural revolution and translated texts from Chinese, Spanish, French, Latin, ancient and modern Greek and Biblical Hebrew.\nAnd Barnstone was just the beginning of his family's poetic legacy.\nTwo of his children, Aliki and Tony, have followed in their father's footsteps. Together, Aliki and Tony have published 17 books, including translations, poetry compilations, textbooks, memoirs and anthologies. \nIU students will get a chance to hear all three in person at a public reading at 4 p.m on Thursday in the Lilly Library.\nFor both of the Barnstone children, poetry has always been a part of their lives.\n"(Barnstone) used to read me his poems, and I always heard poems from other authors," Aliki said. "(Award winning author) Ruth Stone's family and our family would sit around and do this poetry game, and we would all have to write our own poetry as children."\nThe trio has also collected many literary honors, including the Emily Dickinson Award from The Poetry Society of America, the Paumanok Poetry Award and the Randall Jarrell Poetry Prize and have won numerous poetry competitions. Barnstone has even been a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize twice, once in 1960 for "From This White Island" and the second time in 1977 for "China Poems."\nWith such a long list of books and accolades, Barnstone said he is grateful for the success he has garnered over the years.\n"I've been writing for about 56 years, and I've written over 40 books. The world should be sick of me by now," Barnstone joked. "I think that I've been very lucky."\nBarnstone was a professor at IU for over 30 years while Aliki and Tony grew up in the Bloomington area. Despite their ties to Bloomington, none of the trio have done readings either at IU or any nearby location for over 20 years.\n"It's my first reading in 25 years, though I do give readings all over the country, this is the first time we'll all be reading in Bloomington," Barnstone said. "But I'm very pleased to be here, although I will always be alien wherever I am, I am quite fond of this area."\nAs for Tony, this is his first poetry reading in his hometown. While Bloomington readings have been scarce for all members of the Barnstone family, Tony said that he finds inspiration in his hometown.\n"Even though I left Bloomington after I got out of high school, it was the landscape of my imagination for the first 18 years of my life," Tony said. "There's a certain beauty of Bloomington that will never go away in my mind."\nThe quaint Bloomington city limits are not the only source of inspiration for the trio, as they all find inspiration from a large number of sources.\n"It comes out of a combination of reading and whatever I encounter in my daily life," Aliki said. "It's a combination of other art forms that transport me. I recently wrote a poem that was inspired by combining Plato and Jimi Hendrix."\nInspiration for poetry first entered Willis Barnstone's life over 50 years ago -- he attributes the beginning of his poetry career to a late night spark of illumination in his college dormitory. \n"I started writing poetry in the middle of the night when I was either 19 or 20 in Hawthorne Hall, (Bowdoin College) in Nathaniel Hawthorne's actual room at two in the morning, and 20 minutes later I wrote another poem," Barnstone said. "In the morning, I showed them to two of my friends, and they started comparing me to all of these great writers, and it got to my head, and ever since I've never looked back."\nAliki is an Expressive English professor at UNLV and actually started her writing career at the age of 12 with the release of "The Real Tin Flower." With the release of the collection, Barnstone said Aliki was more interested in her acquisition of a brand new bike from Sears than the printing of her first book.\n"Aliki was much more pleased about getting a bicycle than getting the proof of the book. She said, 'Maybe when I'm older I'll appreciate it more,'" Barnstone said. \nTony, an associate professor of creative writing and English at Whittier College, got his start at a comparatively late age -- as an undergraduate student. Despite his late start, Tony said that he values poetry because of its ability to create a reaction in a reader in a short period of time.\n"There's something really nice about how you can create this experience that can start some little engine up in the reader," Tony said. "(Poetry is) so much different than fiction because you have to wait to start the engine. It's the most condensed art."\nAll three poets agree that they find inspiration in each other and value each other's input.\n"We're always calling each other, and I steal from them, and they steal from me. We're all extraordinary pirates," Barnstone joked. "It's always good to have an immediate audience and get a reaction."\nAll three Barnstones said it will be nice to be back in the town that gave all of them some inspiration over the years. \n"I feel lucky to have grown up in Bloomington. It's a great place to grow up," Aliki said. "It is such a wonderfully creative and supportive community in so many ways. I will always have a lot of good things to say about Bloomington."\n-- Contact staff writer Dan Patrick at djpatric@indiana.edu.