Burn: Poems

The world is burning with fire and hatred, but at the same time it is filled with love and incredible beauty. The poems in Burn tango with why the world is so beautiful and terrible at the same time. Hamby asserts that everything is a mess--how do we walk through it laughing and crying? Sometimes you look back and think, ＂How was I so lucky? I could have died a thousand times, but I didn’t. But I will.＂

Barbara Hamby has published seven books of poetry, most recently BirdOdyssey and On the Street of Divine Love: New and Selected Poems. She was a 2010 Guggenheim fellow, and her book of linked stories, Lester Higata’s 20th Century, won the 2010 University of Iowa John Simmons Award and was published by the University of Iowa Press. She and her husband David Kirby edited the poetry anthology Seriously Funny. She teaches at Florida State University where she is distinguished university scholar.