Vox Populi
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Barbara Hamby: Ode to American English
I was missing English one day, American, really, with its pill-popping Hungarian goulash of everything from Anglo-Saxon to Zulu, because British English is not the same, if the paperback dictionary I bought at Brentano’s on the Avenue de l’Opéra is any indication, too cultured by half. Oh, the English know their delphiniums, but what about doowop, donuts, Dick Tracy, Tricky Dick? With their elegant Oxfordian accents, how could they understand my yearning for the hotrod, hotdog, hot flash vocabulary of the U. S of A., the fragmented fandango of Dagwood’s everyday flattening of Mr. Beasley on the sidewalk, fetuses floating on billboards, drive-by monster hip-hop stereos shaking the windows of my dining room like a 7.5 earthquake, Ebonics, Spanglish, “you know” used as comma and period, the inability of 90% of the population to get the present perfect: I have went, I have saw, I have tooken Jesus into my heart, the battlecry of the Bible Belt, but no one uses the King James anymore, only plain-speak versions, in which Jesus, raising Lazarus from the dead, says, “Dude, wake up,” and the L-man bolts up like a B-movie mummy. “Whoa, I was toasted.” Yes, ma’am, I miss the mongrel plenitude of American English, its fall-guy, rat-terrier, dog-pound neologisms, the bomb of it all, the rushing River Jordan backwoods mutability of it, the low-rider, boom-box cruise of it, from New Joisey to Ha-wah-ya with its sly dog, malasada-scarfing beach blanket lingo to the ubiquitous Valley Girl’s like-like stuttering, shopaholic rant. I miss its quotidian beauty, its querulous back-biting righteous indignation, its preening rotgut flag-waving cowardice. Suffering Succotash, sputters Sylvester the Cat; sine die, say the pork-bellied legislators of the swamps and plains. I miss all those guys, their Tweety-bird resilience, their Doris Day optimism, the candid unguent of utter unhappiness on every channel, the midnight televangelist euphoric stew, the junk mail-voice mail vernacular. On every boulevard and rue I miss the Tarzan cry of Johnny Weismueller, Johnny Cash, Johnny B. Goode, and all the smart-talking, gum-snapping hard-girl dialogue, finger-popping x-rated street talk, sports babble, Cheetoes, Cheerios, chili dog diatribes. Yeah, I miss them all, sitting here on my sidewalk throne sipping champagne verses lined up like hearses, metaphors juking, nouns zipping in my head like Corvettes on Dexedrine, French verbs slitting my throat, yearning for James Dean to jump my curb.
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 
Reading this made me feel like I was in the Hamby amusement park, or was it a carny? Great stuff!
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Well-said!
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I am a Hamby fan, bu never more than here!
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I’m a fan of your work! I think we need to arm wrestle over who is the bigger fan.
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I dunno, Barbara: you’d probably flatten an 80-year-old. Thanks for your work and for David’s too.
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I don’t know about that. My biceps have never been that strong. Isn’t poetry the best thing in the whole universe?
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Aye. Poetry and painless dentistry.
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I am not American. But I now understand.
““Dude, wake up,” and the L-man bolts up like a B-movie
mummy. “Whoa, I was toasted.” Yes, ma’am,
I miss the mongrel plenitude of American English, its fall-guy,
rat-terrier, dog-pound neologisms, the bomb of it all,
the rushing River Jordan backwoods mutability of it, the low-rider,
boom-box cruise of it, from New Joisey to Ha-wah-ya
with its sly dog, malasada-scarfing beach blanket lingo
to the ubiquitous Valley Girl’s like-like stuttering,
shopaholic rant.”
Had to grin. Terrific poem.
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Thanks, Rose Mary. Your perspective always enlightens me.
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Love this energetic poem!
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Yes, isn’t it wonderful in its energetic cascade of sounds, jokes and images!
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Love this! T-boned, ticket-spitter, hi-hat.
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Yes, Barbara Hamby is an American treasure.
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