Biography

BARRY SPACKS 
1931-2014


First Poet Laureate of Santa Barbara, Californa.

Last poetry collection: Shaping Water, Gunpowder Press, 2015.


Eleven poetry collections including SPACKS STREET: NEW & SELECTED POEMS, from Johns Hopkins, 1982, winner of The Commonwealth Club of California’s Poetry Medal.


Other endeavors: N.E.A librettist grantee; many poetry readings; poems in 18 anthologies and a multitude of journals, print and cyber; two novels, stories, essays, reviews. singer-songwriter; actor; Literature professor, M.I.T. (1960-1981); persistently Visiting Professor, U.C. Santa Barbara (Distinguished Professor in Humanities & Fine Arts, 1991).


First novel The Sophomore, returned from out-of-print in Faber & Faber’s “Finds” series.


Short Story Collection: There’s Always a Girl, 2013


Awards: For poems and novels: St. Botolph’s Arts Award, Boston.

Senior Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism) student of H.E. Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche. 


Two CDs , A Private Reading, from WC Studios, contains 42 poems (plus chat) from 50 years of work and Selected Poems from Regarding Women.

Art: numerous shows in and around Santa Barbara for the past decade. Memorial Show: “Spacks Street 108” April-May, 2014 at Sullivan Goss Gallery, 7 Anapamu St, Santa Barbara, CA See Artwork for more

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