Mary Ethel Barnard (December 6, 1909 – August 25, 2001) was an American poet, biographer and Greek-to-English translator.

[2] Barnard worked for a few years as a social worker for the Emergency Relief Administration,[7] and while curator of The Poetry Collection at the Lockwood Memorial Library (University at Buffalo, New York) arranged readings and amassed the writing of many modern poets.

[citation needed] Van Doren and Barnard had a common interest in the poet Elinor Wylie.

In 1958, inspired by Salvatore Quasimodo's anthology Greci Lirici, Barnard published Sappho: A New Translation, with the encouragement of Pound, whom she sent the first drafts of the work.

[13] She returned to Vancouver after fifteen years on the East Coast and continued to write, mostly original poetry and prose, until her death.