Vox Populi
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Barbara Hamby: My Translation
I am translating the world into mockingbird, into blue jay, into cat-bombing avian obbligato, because I want more noise, more bells, more senseless tintinnabulation, more crow, thunder, squawk, more bird song, more Beethoven, more philharmonic mash notes to the gods. I am translating the world into onyx, into Abyssinian, into pale blue Visigoth vernacular, because the bloody earth is not one color, one stripe, one smooth mulatto café con leche cream-colored dream, no rumba, no cha-cha, no cheek-to-cheek tango through the Argentine midnight stream, but a hodgepodge of rival factions fighting over the borders of nothing. I am translating the world into blue, azure, cerulean, because there is a sky beneath us as there is a sea above. O the fish soar like dragonflies through empyrean clouds; the mockingbird swims through the ocean like a man-of-war. I am translating the heavens into Gutenberg, into Bodoni, into offset digital karmic Palatino, every “T” a crucifix on the shrine of my lexicographic longing. I am reading the archaic language of birches, frangipani pidgin of monsoon, Bali palm dialect of endless summer. I am translating the sky into bulls, swans, gold dust, for a god is filled with such power that mortal husbands quiver in the shadow of his furious lust, the bliss-driven engine of his thrumming mythopoesis. I am calling the world to take off its veils of fog and soot, shed its overcoat of factories, highways, skyscrapers, lay down its rocks, roots, rivers, and lie naked in my naked arms, for I am translating the earth and all its dominions into desire, into flayed skin screaming abandon, all tongue, mouth, flesh-drunk erotic demonology, fiery seraphim mating with mortals, wings incinerated in the white heat of love, Apollo turning Daphne into marble, into tree roots, into chlorophyll, scent of cut grass, a baby’s mouth sweet with milk, because this is my Cultural Revolution, my Mao Tse-tung, my Chou En-Lai, my attempt to go without sin, to have it my way no matter what, for I am the way, the truth, the light, third empress of the seventh dynasty, Madame Chiang, Madame Nu, Madame X, Madame Three Quarters of the Left Brain, poster girl of a million GIs, Betty Grable to you, buster, Jane Russell, all gams, breasts, blond smiles, brunette tribulation, Betty and Veronica, the last stop before Kiss-and-Tell, Texas, Fourth Shepherdess of confabulation, Calliope’s stepdaughter, Erato’s girl, it’s all Greek to me, for I am translating the world as if it were a bomb, a thief, a book. Chapter One: the noun of my mother’s womb, verb of birth, adjectives of blood, screams, fluorescence. Chapter Two: explosions of words growing into sentences, arms, legs, tentacles. Chapter Three: voyages to unheard-of territories—here be monsters, two-mile waterfalls, portals to the underworld. Chapter Four: returns, for in all of us there’s an Odysseus ready to misunderstand the sky and its garbled signs, rumble-thunder theater of missed cues, because this is our adventure, our calling, our do-or-die mission, translating the world into the body’s bright lie.
From On the Street of Divine Love: New and Selected Poems (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014). Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author and publisher.
Copyright 2014 Barbara Hamby
Barbara Hamby was born in New Orleans and raised in Honolulu. She is the author of seven books of poems, most recently Holoholo (Pitt, 2021). She has also edited an anthology of poems, Seriously Funny (Georgia, 2009), with her husband David Kirby. She teaches at Florida State University where she is Distinguished University Scholar.
Vox Populi 
A tornado of a poem. Just wow.
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Yes, Barbara’s poems are a typhoon of words, sensations, images, concepts carried by the rhythm of her thought.
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Did I just come out of that tangle, that rush, that wild fair ride? Wow! I’m buying more tickets and going again.
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Me too! I love the roller coasters Barbara Hamby creates.
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Wow!
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An amazing tour de force, full of energy and life. Love it!
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Indeed it is. Barbara has many poems that take flight like this one.
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A wild romp of a poem!
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Yes, Barbara’s language is so rich that each poem is a universe unto itself. She is a national treasure, our Keats, our Spenser.
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very nice.
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Yes, it is.
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