Barbara Sherman has been dancing with poetry ever since her childhood days in rural Pennsylvania. In her teens she discovered a book of Robert Frost’s poems on her mother’s bookshelf and fell in love. As a young adult, Barbara taught high school English and yoga in Connecticut and raised two children. After moving to Arizona in 1999, Barbara became a docent at The University of Arizona Poetry Center and an avid reader of contemporary verse. As a writer, she finds inspiration in the work of Mary Oliver, W. S. Merwin and Ross Gay. She is also a docent at Tohono Chul Park in Tucson, where she developed interpretive walks pairing poems with plants. These walks highlight the resilience of plants living in a hot, dry climate and what they have to say to us in this changing world. She also facilitates poetry discussions in the Tohono Chul Art Gallery highlighting poems that illuminate the theme of each exhibition. Barbara holds a Master’s Degree from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut and considers herself a life-long learner. She resides in Oro Valley, Arizona with her husband Ted and two devoted cats.
PRAISE:
Like a hike in the woods or a walk through a canyon, these poems evoke a grounded presence in or the reader that is rooted in Sherman’s deep connection to nature. In language that is simple yet profound, precise yet effortless, Barbara Sherman writes us awake to the daily offerings of the earth.
—Amy Weintraub, author of Temple Dancer, Yoga for Depression & Yoga Skills for Therapists
What a gift to be in Barbara Anne Sherman’s sensibility through these poems. Sherman not only chronicles a sensory experience of nature—with its abundant wonders and pleasures—but she also reminds us of the profound sensory experience that language can be in the hands of a skilled practitioner. In these poems, you’ll feast on the interconnected and ongoing joys of the natural world, and be reminded of your place within it.
—Tyler Meier, Executive Director, University of Arizona Poetry Center
Barbara Sherman’s debut book of poems, Spreading the Light, makes us feel at once grounded and untethered. One moment, we’re discovering that living at a snail’s pace is a beautiful way to experience the world and then – with a turn of the page – we find ourselves bounding through the desert with the deer, or rising to the stars with the furious wings of insects. Whether you want to sit still with the earth or commune with kindred spirits beyond it, Sherman’s poems will light your way.
—Stacey Forbes, author of Little Thistles, winner of the 2023 New Women’s Voices Series Prize 2023.
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