Tony Barnstone, the son of poet and translator Willis Barnstone and visual artist Elli Barnstone, was born in Middletown, Connecticut, and raised in Indiana, Vermont, and Spain. He was educated at Wesleyan University; the University of California, Santa Cruz; and the University of California-Berkeley, where he earned a PhD under poets Robert Pinsky and Robert Hass.

A poet, translator, editor, and writer of fiction, Barnstone has been influenced by such disparate figures as James Wright, Federico García Lorca, and T.S. Eliot. His poems merge crisp, precise imagery with humor, a longer cadence, and an essayistic or narrative arc. As poet Dorianne Laux notes, “The kaleidoscope of voices in Tony Barnstone’s Tongue of War: From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki rise from the grit, blood and smoke of World War II to tell their complex tales of fear and brutality. Through charged, yet plainspeaking personal poems, the terrible, gasping truths are brought to light.” In an interview with Rebecca Seiferle for Drunken Boat, Barnstone stated, “I think that the work of poetry can be important, and that each poet needs to find his or her own way to make it so.”

Barnstone has authored twenty-one books, including poetry collections and chapbooks, and has produced multimedia work, including both a compact disc of music based on his poetry and a tarot deck, The Radiant Tarot: Pathway to Creativity, which draws upon the neuroscience of creativity to turn the tarot into a tool for creativity both in the arts and in reinventing one’s life. He is currently working on a libretto for an opera.

Barnstone’s poetry collections include Pulp Sonnets (Tupelo Press, 2015), illustrated by fellow poet and professor Amin Mansouri; Beast in the Apartment (Sheep Meadow Press, 2014); Tongue of War (BKMK Press, 2009); The Golem of Los Angeles (Red Hen Press, 2008); Sad Jazz: Sonnets (Sheep Meadow Press, 2005); and Impure: Poems(University Press of Florida, 1999). His selected poetry collection, Buda en Llamas: Antología Poética [Buddha in Flames: Poetry Anthology] (1999–2012) appeared in a bilingual Spanish-English edition published by Ediciones El Tucán de Virginia in 2014, with translations by Mariano Zaro.

Barnstone has lived in China, Kenya, and Greece. He currently resides in California, where he is the Albert Upton Professor and Chair of English at Whittier College.