On Native Ground: Memoirs and Impressions

On Native Ground takes us from Jim Barnes’s boyhood in rural southeastern Oklahoma during the Great Depression and World War II through his mature years as an internationally recognized poet. Of Choctaw and Welsh ancestry, Barnes is often identified as a Native American poet. He emphasizes his desire to be recognized for his art, not his blood. Yet he speaks eloquently here of his attachment to his “native ground,” the Choctaw region in Oklahoma—for him “the land where memory dwells.” This edition features a new postscript by the author.