Each year the University of Georgia Libraries selects two living and two deceased writers to be inducted into the Georgia Writer's Hall of Fame. This year the poets Coleman Barks and David Bottoms are being honored along with posthumous inductees Raymond Andrews and Robert Burch.
Barks has had a prolific career as a poet, professor of English, and translator of the thirteenth-century mystic poet Rumi. Barks's translations have been praised for restoring lyrical and poetic beauty to Rumi's work. The Rumi books have also become bestsellers admired by an international audience. The Press recently published Barks's WINTER SKY: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, 1968-2008. Of Barks's poetry Mary Oliver commented, "Why do people read poems? For comfort and a sense of companionship, for encouragement, for the beauty of language, for energy placed on the page with a wish to give it away. Coleman Barks is one of the best." For more on Barks's work and upcoming appearances visit http://www.colemanbarks.com/.
The Press has also published the other three inductees. David Bottoms contributed text to OGLETHORPE'S DREAM: A PICTURE OF GEORGIA. Raymond Andrews's trilogy of novels APALACHEE RED, ROSIEBELLE LEE WILDCAT TENNESSEE, and BABY SWEET'S portray black life in the Deep South from the end of the First World War to the beginning of the 1960s. And Robert Burch's novels RENFROE'S CHRISTMAS, D.J.'S WORST ENEMY, and TYLER, WILKIN, AND SKEE are highly regarded works for young adults.
Barks has had a prolific career as a poet, professor of English, and translator of the thirteenth-century mystic poet Rumi. Barks's translations have been praised for restoring lyrical and poetic beauty to Rumi's work. The Rumi books have also become bestsellers admired by an international audience. The Press recently published Barks's WINTER SKY: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, 1968-2008. Of Barks's poetry Mary Oliver commented, "Why do people read poems? For comfort and a sense of companionship, for encouragement, for the beauty of language, for energy placed on the page with a wish to give it away. Coleman Barks is one of the best." For more on Barks's work and upcoming appearances visit http://www.colemanbarks.com/.
The Press has also published the other three inductees. David Bottoms contributed text to OGLETHORPE'S DREAM: A PICTURE OF GEORGIA. Raymond Andrews's trilogy of novels APALACHEE RED, ROSIEBELLE LEE WILDCAT TENNESSEE, and BABY SWEET'S portray black life in the Deep South from the end of the First World War to the beginning of the 1960s. And Robert Burch's novels RENFROE'S CHRISTMAS, D.J.'S WORST ENEMY, and TYLER, WILKIN, AND SKEE are highly regarded works for young adults.
