John Barger

Adjunct Associate Professor, Creative Writing

MA, Carleton University
BA, Simon Fraser University

Contact Info

Creative Writing

“Love is a mean game, and cruelty in all its forms is a close relative. These vivid, odd, often marvelous poems create brand-new myths that probe unkindness, love, belief, and everything around and in between in Barger’s splendidly original style.”
–John Timpane, The Philadelphia Inquirer

 

John Wall Barger has been teaching at UArts since 2020. His primary focus is poetry. Barger is also an award-winning poet, has published four books; and has 16 years of experience teaching at the university level.

Biography
John Wall Barger grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and has since lived in Finland, Hong Kong, India, Ireland and Italy. He is currently working on a book of essays on contemporary poetry.

His poems have been widely published and anthologized and have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, American Literary Review, American Poetry Review, Antioch Review, The Awl, the Cincinnati Review, the Hopkins Review, Hotel Amerika, Pleiades, Poetry Ireland Review, Rattle, Subtropics, Vallum and elsewhere. His critical writing has appeared in Jacket2, the Kenyon Review, Literary Matters, the Malahat Review, the Mississippi Review, Rain Taxi, the Rumpus and other publications.

Experience

  • Barger has taught creative writing, poetry, and English literature for sixteen years, in three countries. Notably, he taught a graduate creative writing workshop at the prestigious Chinese University of Hong Kong (in Hong Kong).
  • He is the author of four collections of poetry: 
    • The Mean Game (Palimpsest Press, 2019), finalist for the Phillip H. McMath Book Award; 
    • The Book of Festus (Palimpsest, 2015), finalist for the JM Abraham Poetry Award; 
    • Hummingbird (Palimpsest, 2012), finalist for the Raymond Souster Award; and 
    • Pain-proof Men (Palimpsest, 2009).
  • Barger is also the author of three chapbooks: 
    • Dying in Dharamsala (Alfred Gustav Press, 2018); 
    • Samovar / Dukkha (Baseline Press, 2016); and 
    • The Vnfortunate Report & Tragicall Tidings of Leslie Barger (Thee Hellbox Press, 2016).


Explore John Wall Barger’s website.

Visit Barger’s profile on the League of Canadian Poets site. 

Awards & Accolades 

  • Barger’s work has been honored numerous times.
  • He was co-winner of the Malahat Review’s 2017 Long Poem Prize for “Smog Mother.”
  • Barger was shortlisted for the Montreal Poetry Prize twice, in 2011 and 2013.
  • He appeared in Best Canadian Poetry in 2008 and 2015, and in Best of the Best Canadian Poetry in 2017. 
  • Barger was a finalist for 
    • the 2021 Phillip H. McMath Book Award for The Mean Game;
    • the 2020 Grayson Book Prize for Resurrection Fail; 
    • the 2016 JM Abraham Poetry Award for The Book of Festus; and 
    • the 2013 Raymond Souster Award for Hummingbird.