Though she never introduces a god of any kind, Barr almost always offers a third element where we might expect a classic dichotomy. We are faced with nature and with humanity, but Barr denies us the third term of providence, which might justify and resolve. With no final statement from the poet you're not totally confident you understood the message-which makes the poetry even more ominous. Yet, as Barr remarks in a November 2018 interview on NPR's All Things Considered, "There's always some sense of darkness working against the texture of the poem." Contributing to this "sense of darkness," most of the poems lack tonal cues and withhold that last explanatory phrase that sharpens the poem to a point. Barr doesn't marvel at the beauty, she names it plain and simple. John Milton wrote that he wanted to "justify the ways of God to men." But it isn't providence that wants justification. The idea of a paradise lost comes to mind, but doesn't quite satisfy.
There's beauty and also something lurking. After reading Tina Barr's third collection Green Target, there is a sedate sense of ever-present danger you can't quite put your finger on.
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