Raymond Barfield is a writer and doctor. He has published four books of philosophy. Two of them (The Ancient Quarrel Between Poetry and Philosophy and The Poetic A Priori: Philosophical Imagination in a Meaningful Universe) are part of his ongoing attempt to understand what, if anything, imagination shows us about the universe and ourselves. The other two (The Practice of Medicine as Being in Time and Wager: Beauty, Suffering, and Being in the World) are part of his ongoing attempt to understand what, if anything, suffering shows us about the universe and ourselves, and to figure out how to be a good doctor while waiting for the day he has to figure out how to be a patient.
He has also published three novels (The Book of Colors, The Seventh Sentence, and Dreams of a Spirit Seer) and two books of poetry (Life in the Blind Spot and Dreams and Griefs of an Underworld Aeronaut). His third book of poetry (Bruno Glooms on the Bridge of Sighs) is on its way.
In his day job as a palliative care physician, he is endlessly humbled and astonished by the stories his patients and their families tell him while they find their way through really hard stuff. He also enjoys supporting artists, writers, and restauranteurs. He currently focuses on the preservation of Myrtles Crepes (Savannah’s beloved monument to food-as-art-for-the-tongue) and on several projects, including the Savannah Giraffic Park Initiative developed by the ever-surprising Psylvia Olivie Amore-Fouladi — Forsyth Park activist, writer of children’s stories, and occasional lecturer on the art of curating words and bliss. Psylvia and her friend Winter honored him by giving him a lifetime appointment as writer-in-residence at Red Bird and Grackle, the famous Savannah book store, wine portal, gathering place, and publishing house across from the so-called “AT&T” building. The publishing house still works by invitation only because of the astonishing number of books it publishes, and it focuses on musical poetry in the spirit of Hopkins and Yeats, fiction that reveals character gently but deeply, and the production of high-quality popup books with political, fashion, culinary, or ontological themes. Suggestions for other popup book subjects will be considered if they do not involve porcupines, cacti, or thorny bushes that might endanger children if realistically portrayed in the popup book world.
