Blurb (66 words)
Rachel Barton is poet, editor, and writing coach. She edits her own Willawaw Journal and serves as associate editor for Cloudbank Books. Her poems have been published in the Main Street Rag, Across the Margins, the Oregon English Journal, CIRQUE, and several other journals. Find her recently released collection, This is the Lightness (The Poetry Box) and her newest collection Jacob’s Ladder on her website, rachelbartonwriter.com.
Short Bio (146 words)
Rachel Barton, poet, writing coach, and editor, has been published in print or online in the Whale Road Review, Oregon English Journal, Main Street Rag, Moon City Review, CIRQUE, and more. She has taught poetry workshops independently and at Linn-Benton Community College, the Northwest Poets Concord, Willamette Writers on the River, and the Oregon Poetry Association Conference. She is founding editor of Willawaw Journal, an online journal for poetry and art, and was a longstanding member of the editorial collective for the woman’s journal, Calyx. She serves as associate editor for Cloudbank Books. Barton’s short stories have been published online and in print (BeZine, Kindred Journal, Blue Cubicle Press, Clackamas Literary Review). Her recent book, This is the Lightness (The Poetry Box), hernewly released Jacob’s Ladder, and her chapbooks, Out of the Woods, and Happiness Comes are available on her website: Rachel Barton Writer.com
Long Bio (560 words)
Rachel Barton is a poet whose work is driven by voice, imagery, and place, often couched in the natural world. After publishing several chapbooks of her students and of her own work (Thunder Eggs and Other Poems; Alexander Yusha and Other Ghosts; Through a Black Moon; A Winter of Listening; So One Night; Among the Brambles; The Possibility of Sea), Barton moved forward with the launch of Willawaw Journal, an online magazine of poetry and art. The 17th issue goes live in the Fall of 2023. (Previous issues are available in the online archives.) Her newest book, This is the Lightness, was launched by The Poetry Box in 2022. Jacob’s Ladder is forthcoming from Main Street Rag (2024). She released her chapbook, Out of the Woods, May, 2017 with the launch of Willawaw. Her chapbook, Happiness Comes, was published by Dancing Girl Press (Chicago, 2018).
Barton has offered poetry workshops at Linn-Benton Community College (Corvallis, Oregon) and has also taught them independently. The classes are generative, as well as critical, and are modeled after the Writing Project in which the writer develops his or her voice in a supportive community of writers. Participants have closed the term with the publication of individual chapbooks or with a public reading of their works at a local venue.
Barton also served as co-chair for the local chapter of Willamette Writers for two years followed by a year as Assistant Editor in Chief for their Timberline Review. She facilitated poetry workshops with this group as well as for the OPA and The NW Poets Concord.
In addition to serving as editor for Willawaw Journal, Barton was a longtime member of the editorial poetry collective for Calyx Journal, and currently reads for Cloudbank Magazine. She participates in a couple of critique groups and has regularly attended the NW Poets Concord, Oregon Poetry Association Conference and the Willamette Writers Conference.
Barton earned her B.A. in English at West Virginia University (1976) where she also pursued graduate studies in art with a focus on printmaking. In 1978, she immigrated to Anchorage where she continued her study of printmaking at the Visual Arts Center of Alaska, participating in juried shows and winning prizes.
In 2004, Barton moved to Oregon and, in 2006, earned her Masters in Teaching from Western Oregon University. She taught English and ESOL and facilitated the CRISS Literacy Project at Sweet Home High School. After her second year of teaching, she enrolled in the Oregon Writing Project Summer Institute at Willamette University and became a Teacher Consultant. The following summer she completed the OWP’s Advanced Poetry. She found/returned to her home in writing.
Barton also studied Spanish at LBCC (2005, 2010) and in Veracruz at the Language Immersion School (2007). In 2012, she visited Abadania, Brazil.
Barton’s poetry publications include Hubbub, The Oregon English Journal, Moon City Review, Main Street Rag, Sin Fronteras, the Mom Egg Review, CIRQUE, and others. She also has a poem in the anthology, The Absence of Something Specified (Eds. Laura Lehew, Quinton Hallett, et al) and has a piece in the OPA Pandemic Anthology. A handful of her poems will appear in Corvallis Poetry Anthology through Flowstone Press (Steve Sher, Ed.). Her short stories have been published in Blue Cubicle Press, Kindred Journal, BeZine, and most recently Clackamas Literary Review. For more information and examples of her work, please go to Rachel BartonWriter.com.