Vox Populi
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Barbara Hamby: Vex Me
Vex me, O Night, your stars stuttering like a stuck jukebox,
put a spell on me, my bones atremble at your tabernacle
of rhythm and blues. Call out your archers, chain me
to a wall, let the stone fortress of my body fall
like a rabid fox before an army of dogs. Rebuke me,
rip out my larynx like a lazy snake and feed it to the voiceless
throng. For I am midnight’s girl, scouring unlit streets
like Persephone stalking her swarthy lord. Anoint me
with oil, make me greasy as a fast-food fry. Deliver me
like a pizza to the snapping crack-house hours between
one and four. Build me an ark, fill it with prairie moths,
split-winged fritillaries, blue-bottle flies. Stitch
me a gown of taffeta and quinine, starlight and nightsoil,
and when the clock tocks two, I’ll be the belle of the malaria ball.
From On the Street of Divine Love: New and Selected Poems (Pitt, 2014). Included in Vox Populi by permission of the author and the University of Pittsburgh Press.
Barbara Hamby is the author of many collections of poetry. She and her husband David Kirby edited the poetry anthology Seriously Funny. She teaches at Florida State University where she is distinguished university scholar.
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Rhythm and humor and oh my!
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How DO you do it? That whole book is one gem after another. Fabulously original poetry, time after time!
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When I can’t make myself get out of bed in the morning, the music of Barbara’s poetry can do the trick and her humor that floats like colorful oil over dark muck gives me reason to try again.
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She’s great, isn’t she?
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Love the wit and the music!!
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I never tire of Barbara’s poems. Never tire of reading them aloud. I mean, just listen to the last sentence: “I’ll be the belle of the malaria ball” — that’s pure music, rhythm and blues. And the whole musical quality of this poem is like a ganache over a multi layered cake! Full of surprises, delicious, sonorous, delight-filled “with prairie moths,
split-winged fritillaries, blue-bottle flies.
“Stitch me a gown of taffeta and quinine, starlight and nightsoil,” — pure JOY!
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Perfect, Laure-Anne. Thank you!
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Hear, hear!
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This is a queasy delight. So many surprises to turn through.
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‘Queasy delight.’ Hahaha. Nice coinage as well as an accurate description of the subject of the poem.
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Hey, Marty, this morning I was reading your poems in Live Encounters. Good stuff!
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This is a wonderland of imagery. As Rose Mary says: just right. I was delightedly vexed, glad to be part of her audience. I challenge AI to come even close to the imagination driving Hamby’s poem(s).
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I love Barbara Hamby’s poems for their music, their wit, and their intelligence. So glad she is spinning her poems and sharing them!
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I feel the same, Michael. Music, wit, intelligence. Just right.
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