English poet mostly concerned with the elemental forces of life. His first verses were published in the 1930s, and he became popular in the '40s, about the same time as the poet Dylan Thomas, who voiced similar themes but whose reputation overshadowed Barker's.

Barker left school at 14 and worked at a variety of jobs before his first publications, the novel Alanna Autumnal and Thirty Preliminary Poems, appeared in 1933. He taught English literature in Japan, the United States, and England from 1939 to 1974. Two of his important long poems are Calamiterror (1937), which was inspired by the Spanish Civil War, and The True Confession of George Barker (1950; rev. ed. 1957). His poems include the moving “Sonnet to My Mother.” His later poems include Villa Stellar (1978) and Anno Domini (1983). Barker's Collected Poems was published in 1987.