Illinois Authors

The Illinois Center for the Book banner

Barney Furman Bush

Born: 1946 in Herod, Illinois
Pen Name: Barney Bush

Connection to Illinois: Bush was born and raised in Herod, Illinois.

Biography: Bush is a Shawnee poet, author, musician, educator, activist and humanitarian.As an author and poet, Bush has been published and translated internationally. He has taught in numerous colleges and universities in the United States. He received his B.A. in Humanities from Ft. Lewis College, Durango, Colorado, a Masters of Arts in English and Fine Arts from the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. As a Shawnee Native American, Bush was inspired to react to the losing of his homelands. During the sixties he became involved with the ''American Indian Movement'' which was just forming in Minneapolis, Minnesota and became involved in protests over the lack of understanding about Native people in their own homelands. He was an organizer of several schools throughout Indian country and, in 1970, helped create the first Native American Studies programs for colleges, high schools and grade schools in the United States.Bush has also taught writing and English logic classes in Native American schools across North America including Alaska and Hawaii. He has been a guest speaker in universities of western Europe as well as North and Central America. Bush has also served as a writer-in-residence for numerous arts councils including but not limited to - New York, North Carolina, Illinois, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Vermont. From 1989 through 2005 he recorded musical and spoken poetry albums with ''nato records'' in Paris, France. All lyrics on the albums were written by Bush and the music was composed by Tony Hymas, who was an English composer and recording artist. One of their early albums, ''Left for Dead'', was admitted to the list of the 'Greatest Experimental Hits in the History of Music.' Currently, Bush serves as the Chair of the Vineyard Indian Settlement in Herod, Illinois.


Awards:
  • Bush is the first indigenous poet admitted to the ''Society of Artists, Composers and Editors of Music'' in Paris, France.

Primary Audience(s): Adult readers

Website: http://vinyardindiansettlement.org/Home_Page.html
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_creation/Barney_Bush_-_Native_American_Author_(Shawnee)
Barney Furman Bush on WorldCat : http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=barney+furman+bush


Selected Titles

  Inherit the blood :
ISBN: 0938410288 OCLC: 11443856

Thunder's Mouth Press, New York, N.Y. : ©1985.

  Petroglyphs.
ISBN: 0912678542 OCLC: 948623468

Small Press Distribution, [Place of publication not identified] : 1983.

 

 

Accessibility