Says the author: Art, Passion, Poetry was inspired largely by the fact that with teaching, research, writing, and painting, I have had less time for playing the piano, which I dearly love, and have played since age five. I have transmuted the musical urge into a different kind of music: poetry, where I think my musical instincts are more developed than at the keyboard. However, the words of poems are as notes to me, and each line a chord or arpeggio or trill that, when the poem ends, has given me a distinct piece of music, with reflections of lived experience, memory, creativity, analysis, passion. My poems are musical pieces. When I finished selecting the right poems for my title, I realized that I had written a musical or poetic memoir of my life, one that has adhered from a love of linguistic and historical analysis together with Art, Passion, Poetry. Art, Passion, Poetry all play a part in each poem of this collection in a particular way, and usually in more than one way, often quite unanticipated. The poem's title may or may not reveal the major theme or themes of that poem. There are often choices of ethics, aesthetics, sensuality, and even cultural and political values that readers may be obliged to make to arrive at a conclusion near or far from the poet's. This is because Barbara Sher Tinsley believes that poetry places at least as much responsibility on the reader as on her own shoulders, while recognizing in a profound way that the transmission of any poem is a shared task, one of decoding the artistry and passion of each offering. She also engages her readers in conversations as significant to our human experience - whether creative or procreative or merely sensuous - as others that contribute to our economic, educational, professional, or mental well-being. Readers will discover that art, poetry, and passion are really one. Barbara Sher Tinsley, Ph.D. (Stanford '83), is a Fulbright Scholar who has published major works in Reformation Studies/Early Modern Europe, has also written a book on antiquity. A professor of history at several community colleges and four-year institutions in the Bay Area, she has now turned to creative writing and painting. Her first novel, Candida's Own Italian Renaissance, reflects many trips to Italy and a residence in Florence and in Alto Adige. She has lived in California for the last half century in a house well over one hundred years old. She is the poetry columnist for the newspaper Los Gatos This Week. Barbara Sher Tinsley, Ph.D. (Stanford '83), is a Fulbright Scholar who has published major works in Reformation Studies/Early Modern Europe, and has also written a book on antiquity. "For years I taught French, European history, and English literature in colleges and universities. Recently retired, I have become a full-time poet, novelist, memoirist, part-time watercolorist, and gardener. I practice Bach, Gershwin, and Chopin when I have time." Publisher's website: http: //sbprabooks.com/BarbaraSherTinsley
