Travelling in Place . . . and to Other Places

Barbara Sher Tinsley, Ph.D. (Stanford ‘83) has applied her love of home life and European residence in this poetry collection, which glistens with love of history, a sociologist’s views on modern culture, a romanticist’s sensuality, lyricism. 

A Fulbright Fellow to Strasbourg, she and her family resided two years in Paris; months in Florence, Italy’s Tyrol, Spain’s southern coast. Her long residence in California has enriched her poetry. She “travels” by memory to childhood, youth, early maturity; physically to Denver, Dallas, Virginia, Vermont, her birthplace, Gloversville, N.Y. and its environs, as well as abroad. She makes “trips” to a Mozart opera, Vermeer’s Holland, classical Greece and the German Renaissance. Now how did she get there? Guess.

A professor of French literature, English composition, and Western civilization, Dr. Tinsley has published three books on the Renaissance-Reformation era, one on classical antiquity, and a novel of art history and love In Italy and California. This is her fourth poetry collection. Her biography appears in “Who’s Who” and “The Dictionary of American Philosophers.” She has articles in academic journals and three encyclopedias; has lectured to international and local audiences; recited poetry on YouTube.

She travels by reflecting on the past and the  present. Nature. Mental travel. Such is the poem “Travel Companions” (#1) on childhood. Domesticity adheres in “Porch Pillars” (#2); in “Hill Climbing (#17); “Hearts and Gardens” (#18), and two novels: “Holden” (#37) and “The Golden Bowl,” (#86). “Book Club” (#28) is also about reading novels. For travel abroad (France, Italy, Spain), there are many examples. Bon voyage! Buon viaggio! ¡Buen viaje! Readers conclude their travels with memories “From an Old Travel Journal” (#91) with thirteen poems from Frankfurt to Normandy, Paris, Torino, Genoa, Rome. Her credit card pays!