For The Animals Who Missed The Ark

These are kindly good-hearted poems. Jim Barton brings to these poems a sweet delicate careful attention to detail and a winning love of the Earth and the creatures on it. But he also has a lovely way of weaving rhymes into the flow of the poem so delicately that youll miss them if you arent as careful in your attention as he is. Finally Barton takes a modest delight in teasing gentle humor out of his narratives nothing forced just a light touch with what the Earth gives him. It is this light touch that I admire most. Red Hawk poet Like a flood Jim Bartons poems swiftly capture the essence of both the natural and human world reminding us of not only the animals who missed the ark but ourselves when weve missed the ark. These poems reveal a love of language and a love of humanity. Diane Payne Editor Foliate Oak Like the best poets Jim Barton helps readers see connections between the past and the present between the familiar and the foreign and between nature and ourselves. Bartons lively treatment of his varied subjects his gentle humor and his love of nature make his writing accessible to a wide audience. Phillip Ballard Founding Editor of Between the Lines Jim Barton is clearly a modern-day Thoreau. He knows the elements of the Great Outdoors as though they were his children much like Thoreau knew intimately his woodchucks and his bean fields. I came to know intimately Jim Bartons deer his snakes his snapping turtles and the hawks of his beloved land the Bayou Country of southernmost Arkansas but a stones throw from the Louisiana border. The poet tells us in an early poem I prop my ladder...an aluminum stairway to Heavens prizes. As readers of this collection if we will but climb that stairway we are certain to reap the golden riches. Harding Stedler poet member Executive Board Poets Roundtable of Arkansas