num_pages: 93
description: Barbara Hamby makes her poems out of jokes, Italian phrases, quotes from saints and philosophers, references to meals eaten and wines drunk. In a fluid, compelling voice, she sets a stage, peoples it with real and imagined characters, spins them into dizzying motion, and then makes everything disappear as with a wave of a conjurer's wand, leaving the reader to wonder, “Did that happen, or did I dream it?” One leaves her poetry the way one leaves a dark theater on a July afternoon, convinced that the ordinary passions really won't do—they need to be larger, as large as they are in these poems.
language: English
title: Delirium
titlecomplete: Delirium (Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry)
genres: Poetry
ratings_count: 21
series: Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry
awards: awardedAt: 820483200000
name: Kate Tufts Discovery Award, awardedAt: 757411200000
name: Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry
publisher: University of North Texas Press