Vox Populi
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Barbara Hamby: Ode to Barbecue
We are lost again in the middle of redneck nowhere,
which is a hundred times scarier
than any other nowhere because everyone has guns.
Let me emphasize that plural—rifles,
double-barreled shotguns, .22 semi-automatics,
12-gauge pumps, .357 magnums. And for what?
Barbecue. A friend of a friend’s student’s cousin’s
aunt’s husband was a cook in the army
for 30 years, and he has retired to rural Georgia
with the sole aim in his artistic soul of creating
the best barbecued ribs in the universe and, according
to rumor, he has succeeded, which is not surprising
because this is a part of the world where the artistic soul
rises up like a phoenix from the pit of rattlesnake
churches and born-again retribution, where Charlie Lucas
the Tin Man creates dinosaurs, colossi of rusted
steel bands and garbage can mamas with radiator torsos,
electric-coil hearts, fingers of screws. Here W.C. Rice’s
Cross Garden grows out of the southern red clay with rusted
Buicks shouting, “The Devil Will Put Your Soul
in Hell Burn it Forever” and “No Water in Hell,” and I think
of Chet Baker singing “Let’s Get Lost,” and I know
what he means, because more and more I know
where I am, and I don’t like the feeling,
and Chet knew about Hell and maybe about being saved,
something much talked about in the deep South,
being saved and being lost because we are all sinners,
amen, we bear Adam’s stain, and the only way
to heaven is to be washed in the blood of the Lamb,
which is kind of what happens when out of the South
Georgia woods we see a little shack with smoke
pouring from the chimney though it’s August
and steamier than a mild day in Hell; we sit at a picnic table
and a broad bellied man sets down plates of ribs,
a small mountain of red meat, so different from Paris
where for my birthday my husband took me
to an elegant place where we ate tiny ribs washed down
with a sublime St Joseph. Oh, don’t get me wrong,
they were good, but the whole time I was out of sorts,
squirming on my perfect chair, disgruntled,
because I wanted to be at Tiny Register’s, Kojack’s,
J.B.’s, I wanted ribs all right but big juicy ribs dripping
with sauce, the secret recipe handed down from grandmother
to father to son, sauce that could take the paint off a Buick,
a hot, sin-lacerating concoction of tomatoes, jalapeños
and sugar, washed down with iced tea, Coca-Cola, beer,
because there’s no water in Hell, and Hell is hot, oh yeah.
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.
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What a great voice to be heard here – oh yeah.
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I agree, Lex. Thank you.
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As many components in this exquisite poem as in a generations-old BBQ rub. Thanks for it, Barbara!
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Nice analogy, Syd.
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Terrific poetry! I live in the southeast. I absolutely adore Charlie Lucas and his artwork. Used to see him every year at an art festival.
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Thanks, Leah!
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I have referred to my neighborhood as Redneckville, USA in some of my poems and talked of my fear as a child of burning alive either by the 1950″s Bomb or my potential “Eternal Damnation in fire and brimstone” if I couldn’t accept the Church’s beliefs but right now I feel safe here; much more so than if I were passing through some neighborhoods of our countries large cities. The worst thing that has helped to me here was the destruction of my “Biden” signs! I may have to buy me some guns and sit at my window at night and wait for those redneck you know what’s next year!
I am currently reading On the street of Divine Love thanks to Vox Populi!
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Thanks, Leo. I’ve lived in Redneckville in the past; so I know what you mean.
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I get it. How can I love it when my vegetarian stomach churns at the graphic pictures? But I suppose that is why some folks love horror movies and I do love it and the clear pictures she always evokes and the warm summer and somewhere in all that my long gone Southern grandmother with her high apple pies who was somehow related to a beloved grand ol’ opry star. And I remember the high piles of meat and my young stomach that loved it all.
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Hahahaha. Me too, Barbara, me too. Thanks for speaking up for vegans.
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I was a vegetarian for 11 years, and I still am most of the time, but I do slip when it comes to some things, especially shrimps and such.
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wow!
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…and that is another one of B. Hamby’s hot poems — it is hot, oh yeah.
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Hahahaha. Oh yeah.
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This is such a fabulous poem. I can feel the heat, taste that wonderful sauce.
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Yes! Thanks, Valerie!
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Barbara Hamby is heaven sent, hellfire and all.
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Yes, she is. Thanks, Warren.
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I live in the “redneck hell” you mentioned, and the ribs, and the pulled pork BBQ, are about the only thing going for it.
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Make that “redneck nowhere”. I guess it was a Freudian slip.
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Redneck hell, in my experience, is an accurate epithet.
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Oh boy, this on-target-as-usual poem from the fabulous Ms Hamby resurrected a horrific memory of being lost in an old Ford pickup driving down rutted rural roads near Thomasville, GA, round about midnight. And getting a flat tire. With no spare. Whew . . . I’ll be eating more BBQ tomorrow.
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Having grown up in redneck nowhere, I know exactly what the poet is talking about.
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