De-Classified New Poetry by Barbara Saxton

De-Classified (New Poetry by Barbara Saxton) is by turns transformative, emotionally charged, and uplifting. As an avid reader of poetry, novels, short stories, and non-fiction, Barbara gravitates toward works that show how deeply various subject matter has affected the author. For her, poetry need not be written or shared if the topic, and the ways the poet bends beautiful (or, in some cases, audacious or humorous) language around it, does not move or interest one greatly. Obviously, her ultimate aim is to involve the reader in her enthusiasm, empathy, and revelation. If some or all of the works in this book transform the way you think about, react to, or desire to change anything, then she has achieved that objective.

Barbara grew up (sort of… ) in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, the youngest of four children. She moved to California in her senior year of high school (graduated in Palo Alto H.S. class of 1968), earned a B.A. in Asian Studies (Chinese language/history emphasis) from UC Santa Barbara, and lived in Hong Kong, Berkeley, and Seattle before returning to the Bay Area , where she has lived pretty much ever since. She was employed in the financial sector for many years, before and after staying home for about seven years to care for her two young sons. Her "second career." which she pursued for about seventeen years, was as a middle and high school English teacher. She and Owen have been married for over forty years, and have basically been too happy for their union to show up in many of her poems.

Besides writing (and reading) poetry, Barbara engages in a wide range of interests and activities: performing classical, folk and Eastern European vocal music, teaching, folk dancing, hiking, cooking and traveling. Her chapbook Dual Exposure was published in 2015 by Blue Light Press. Her work has appeared in the Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Nature Pictures, Poetry Breakfast, Slippery Elm, River of Earth and Sky: Poetry for the Twenty-First Century, Pandemic Puzzle Poems, Canyon, River, Stone and Light and many other literary journals and anthologies.