Babel

by Barbara Hamby

Book Overview

Babel features more of the rhetorical acrobatics that fueled Barbara Hamby's earlier work. These whirlwinds of words and sounds form vistas, images, and scenes that are at once unique and immediately recognizable. In poems such as "Six, Sex, Say," she displays a linguistic bravado that moves effortlessly through translations, cognates, and homonyms. This love of words permeates the poems, from the husband wooing his future wife "with a barrage of...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822958597
• ISBN13: 9780822958598
• Release Date: November 2004
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Length: 88 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.9" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Another Guest for the Ideal Dinner Party

This is a collection of complex, intense, extremely rich riffs on urban life in America and France -- right now. And, just in case all those adjectives makes you imagine I'm ranting about some sort of unfocussed, drugged out beat wannabe ramblings -- I mean Hamby is generous with her intelligence and sophistication and elaborates both into mind bending odes with a stunning sense of classical balance and judicious length. This poetry is as sexy as Miles Davis's type of cool. If I were still giving dinner parties every other week, I'd invite her over every other month. Not all the time, mind you; but DEFINITELY often.

a flurry, whirlwind, and wonder

Ms. Hamby is a truly gifted poet. Her words fly from the page like a swarm of butterflies and bees, buzzing and fluttering in an intense sphere tickling your every vein. Every poem is a fusion of rant, dance, and holler, lovliness, and song. This is a true gem.