Delirium (Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry) [Paperback]

Barbara Hamby (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The second poem of Hamby's first full-length collection, "Betrothal in B Minor," is a demonic celebration of the feminine. In it, women lined up like a Greek chorus bewail the "romantic glaucoma" triggered by our wishes and hormones, "the tiny electrical sparks that bewilder,/ befog, beguile, becloud our angelic intellect." In this section, much of which is organized around bees, long, circuitous lines resemble the predator stalking its prey. One would have thought, after Sylvia Plath's bee sequence in Ariel, that women poets would stay clear of the topic, but here Hamby continually?and powerfully?intertwines their sexuality with her own. Hamby's fierce originality diffuses in the next section as she leaves the bees behind and chronicles a trip to Italy, meditating on saints and near-saints, exploring body parts, dust and doubt. Many of these poems shout their contrivances. The book ends with a multi-voiced sequence, "The Autopsy of John Keats," describing that poet's voyage from London to Italy, and his final days: although high in technique, these poems move the reader less than the intense, dense poems of the first section.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

In this elegant, intelligent, witty collection--winner of this year's Vassar Miller prize in poetry--Hamby frequently favors a six-beat, alexandrine-like line in couplets that in her hands become turbocharged, multilingual compendia. Her subject is often the miraculous discovered in the ordinary: "There is always a miracle if you know / where to look," she reminds us. There is nothing remotely ordinary, however, about the language in which she reveals that miracle. A wildly fluent poem about eggs, for instance, brings us from breakfast through Piero della Francesca's painting of Christ and Faberge's "begemmed and enameled concoctions" to recipes for meringue and then lands squarely, finally, at the miracle of life itself. Once started, it's hard to stop reading Hamby, so tightly does she knit each line of her rich, full, strong poetry to the next. Patricia Monaghan --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 103 pages
• Publisher: University of North Texas Press; 1St Edition edition (June 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574410032
• ISBN-13: 978-1574410037
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,519,100 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stimulate Your Mind, August 17, 2000

By 

Sarah Chasnovitz (Durham, NC USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Delirium (Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry) (Paperback)

Sensual. Barbara Hamby's poems read like a word game played out in the mind of a well-read, well-travelled, and highly observant woman. She leads readers into the dream-like inner-workings of her mind with witty, eloquent, and sometimes inspiring commentary weaving topics from bees to love and champagne. I have been reading this collection of poetry for 4 years and I am still entranced by its beauty.