Gene Barry
Who: GENE BARRY
When: Saturday, March 21, 8 pm
Where: Lucky Dog Books, 633 W. Davis Street, 75208
Gene Barry is an Irish Poet, Art Therapist and a practicing Psychotherapist. He has been published widely both at home and internationally and his poems have been translated into Arabic, Irish and Italian.
Barry is founder of the Blackwater Poetry group that meets weekly in The Spinning Wheel in Castletownroche County Cork, Ireland and administers the world famous Blackwater Poetry Group on Facebook. He is also a publisher and runs the publishing house Rebel Poetry.
As an art therapist using the medium of poetry, Gene has worked in hospitals, primary and secondary schools, NA, Youthreach, with retired people’s groups, AA, asylum seekers and with numerous poetry groups.
H
e has read in Australia, the US, the Caribbean, Holland, England, Scotland, England, and Belgium and as the guest poet at numerous Irish poetry venues. In 2007 Gene read at the Patrick Kavanagh Celebration in Dublin.
Barry’s chapbook No Family Tree was published 2008 and in 2013 his collection Unfinished Business was published by Doghouse Books. In 2010 Gene was editor of the anthology Silent Voices, a collection of poems written by asylum seekers living in Ireland.
Gene edited the anthologies Remembering the Present in May 2012, Inclusion and The Blue Max Review 2012, 2013 and 2014 editions as part of the Fermoy International Poetry Festival. In 2014 Barry additionally edited Irish poet Michael Corrigan’s collection Deep Fried Unicorn, and fathers and what must be said and The Day the Mirror Called for Rebel Poetry.
Barry is also founder and chairman of the Fermoy International Poetry Festival and is presently editing his new collection of poems.
Unfinished Business by Gene Barry (Doghouse books): Gene Barry is a very engaged poet. What he observes in today’s world is his muse. The poem ‘Michael’ is a prime example: After polio had visited, / the boy it chose / was never the same.
Detailed lines follow to a tragic conclusion. Poets who write on life have reality as their canvass and this is very true of the poems in this publication. Unfinished Business is a great first collection and earns a space on the poetry favorites shelf.
Poetry Cornwall: Barry works as an art therapist and psychotherapist in north County Cork. However as a poet he founded Elbow Lane Poetry and the Fermoy International Poetry Festival, of which he is also chairman. He also teaches poetry in local schools and edits collections. Although this is his first collection, his poems have been widely published and even translated into Arabic and Italian.
His professional life brings him into contact with asylum seekers, active retirement groups and hospital patients and their experiences are reflected in many of his poems. As well as this, his poetry also reflects his own experiences and thoughts on the big issues on life and love.
Books Ireland:
Tsead Bruinja. Holland: The poems of Gene Barry are generous and compassionate. Barry writes rebel poetry that rebels against the hardening of our hearts and minds and urges us to stay open-minded and understanding. Anybody who writes lines like ‘lost my breath again / as they doled out / the currency of resentment, / bitterness’ deserves your and my attention. I am thrilled and happy that his first collection has finally appeared in print.
Michèle Vassal. France: Gene Barry’s poems informed and grounded in the vernacular of the soul, reveal his deep understanding of human nature. His poetry describes la condition humaine with an unequivocal honesty and a purity of language which, I have to admit, transported me.
Bradley R. Strahan. USA:Gene Barry knows how difficult it is to deal with the burdens that are visited upon each generation by its progenitors. His poetry epitomizes the struggle all of us must face to put aside the hurt and forgive, and possibly even love.
His work deals honestly with the day to day realities and struggles of daily life in a way that shrugs off nothing, that refuses to obfuscate or romanticize. His poetic voice is an original one that speaks memorably to all of us.
