He adopted the decadent style favoured by gothic and macabre poets including Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Count Stenbock, James Thomson (B.V.), H. P. Lovecraft, and the German Bonaventura. A classmate of fellow poet Wallace Stevens, Park Barnitz was a visionary who prefigured modernism in his adoption of new paradigms and literary styles as a form of mask. This turn has been seen as matching his intellectual cynicism and misanthropy.
Park Barnitz was influenced by the elaborate style of gothic and macabre poets such as Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Count Stenbock, James Thomson (B.V.), H. P. Lovecraft, and the German Bonaventura. As a classmate of Wallace Stevens, Barnitz was a forward-thinking poet who anticipated modernism by embracing innovative styles and literary approaches as a means of concealment. This transition has been interpreted as reflecting his intellectual pessimism and disdain for human nature.