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 you ll miss them if you aren t 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 Barton s 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 we ve 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. Barton s 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 Barton s deer, his snakes, his snapping turtles, and the hawks of his beloved land, the Bayou Country of southernmost Arkansas, but a stone s throw from the Louisiana border.
The poet tells us in an early poem, I prop my ladder...an aluminum stairway to Heaven s 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