#Barbara Hamby

[metamorphesque]

Letter to a Lost Friend, Barbara Hamby

#barbara hamby #quotes #literature #poetry #poems #friendship #dark academia #romantic academia #light academia #poem

[apoemaday]

Letter to a Lost Friend

by Barbara Hamby

There must be a Russian word to describe what has happened between us, like ostyt, which can be used for a cup of  tea that is too hot, but after you walk to the next room, and return, it is too cool; or perekhotet, which is to want something so much over months and even years that when you get it, you have lost the desire. Pushkin said, when he saw his portrait by Kiprensky, “It is like looking into a mirror, but one that flatters me.” What is the word for someone who looks into her friend’s face and sees once smooth skin gone like a train that has left the station in Petersburg with its wide avenues and nights at the Stray Dog Cafe, sex with the wrong men, who looked so right by candlelight, when everyone was young and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, painted or wrote all night but nothing good, drank too much vodka, and woke in the painful daylight with skin like fresh cream, books everywhere, Lorca on Gogol, Tolstoy under Madame de Sévigné, so that now, on a train in the taiga of  Siberia, I see what she sees  —  all my books alphabetized and on shelves, feet misshapen, hands ribbed with raised veins, neck crumpled like last week’s newspaper, while her friends are young, their skin pimply and eyes bright as puppies’, and who can blame her, for how lucky we are to be loved for even a moment, though I can’t help but feel like Pushkin, a rough ball of  lead lodged in his gut, looking at his books and saying, “Goodbye, my dear friends,” as those volumes close and turn back into oblong blocks, dust clouding the gold leaf that once shimmered on their spines.          

#poetry #barbara hamby #letter to a lost friend

[llovelymoonn]

favourite poems of december

torrin a. greathouse ekphrasis on nude selfie as portrait of saint sebastian

snehal vadher hello flowers and cigarettes

robert pinsky death and the powers: a robot pageant

wendy barker taking a language

cindy juyoung ok terms and conditions

carl phillips this far in

christian wiman hard night: “the ice storm”

cathy linh che split: “the german word for dream is traume”

linda hogan when the body

david trinidad the late show: “a regret”

omotara james my mother’s nerves are shot--

marie howe the good thief: “death, the last visit”

kaveh akbar portrait of the alcoholic floating in space with severed umbilicus

donald britton in the empire of the air: “italy”

snehal vadher figures in a windswept language

jane wong after preparing the alter, the ghosts feast feverishly

ofelia zepeda ocean power: “deer dance exhibition”

lucille clifton good woman: poems and a memoir, 1969-1980: “the lost baby poem”

emily pérez dworzec

ouyang jianghe mother, kitchen (tr. austin woerner)

cathy linh che i walked through the trees, mourning

sam willets tourist

ed bok lee whorled: “if in america”

dan gerber marriage

matthew rohrer poem written with issa [“a friend emails”]

richard siken crush: “litany in which certain things are crossed out”

april bernard anger

claudia rankine citizen: “you are in the dark, in the car...”

barbara hamby letter to a lost friend

joy harjo everybody has a heartache: a blues

cathy linh che go forget your father

kofi

#tbr list #poem #poems #poetry #poetry list #cathy linh che #joy harjo #barbara hamby #claudia rankine #april bernard #richard siken #matthew rohrer #dan gerber #ed bok lee #sam willets #ouyang jianghe #emily perez #emily pérez #lucille clifton #ofelia zepeda #jane wong #snehal vadher #donald britton #kaveh akbar #marie howe #omotara james #david trinidad #linda hogan #christian wiman #carl phillips

[loudlylovingreview]

Barbara Hamby: Ode on Killing Sadness 

In the nursing home in Havana I can’t help but think of my mother, who would be 91,as I take each old woman’s hand and say “hola,” or “buenas tardes,” and I notice one ladywho is sitting off to the side with a look that says, “No one is going to say hello to me,”so I walk over and take her hand, and she sits up and kisses me on the cheek, a hard peckjust like the kamikaze kisses of my mother, and…

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#aging #Barbara Hamby #Cuba #elegy #Havana #mothers and daughters #Ode on Killing Sadness #Roberto Fabelo

[taaffeitemoth]

Letter to a Lost Friend

There must be a Russian word to describe what has happened

between us, like ostyt, which can be used

for a cup of  tea that is too hot, but after you walk to the next room,

and return, it is too cool; or perekhotet,

which is to want something so much over months

and even years that when you get it, you have lost

the desire. Pushkin said, when he saw his portrait by Kiprensky,

“It is like looking into a mirror, but one that flatters me.”

What is the word for someone who looks into her friend’s face

and sees once smooth skin gone like a train that has left

the station in Petersburg with its wide avenues and nights

at the Stray Dog Cafe, sex with the wrong men,

who looked so right by candlelight, when everyone was young

and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, painted or wrote

all night but nothing good, drank too much vodka, and woke

in the painful daylight with skin like fresh cream, books

everywhere, Lorca on Gogol, Tolstoy under Madame de Sévigné,

so that now, on a train in the taiga of  Siberia,

I see what she sees — all my books alphabetized and on shelves,

feet misshapen, hands ribbed with raised veins,

neck crumpled like last week’s newspaper, while her friends

are young, their skin pimply and eyes bright as puppies’,

and who can blame her, for how lucky we are to be loved

for even a moment, though I can’t help but feel like Pushkin,

a rough ball of  lead lodged in his gut, looking at his books

and saying, “Goodbye, my dear friends,” as those volumes

close and turn back into oblong blocks, dust clouding

the gold leaf that once shimmered on their spines.

- Barbara Hamby

#poem #poetry #barbara hamby

[erncst]

Tag Drop;;; Ships ((if we have a ship, and you don’t see a tag for it, it’s because we’re still developing it and it will get a tag once I know what fits them best!)

#you showed me colors you know i cant see with anyone else | jessica hamby (nanlanmo) #i think ive seen this film before | rory gilmore #love for all my life to have and to hold; i want a sunday kind of love. | barbara brooks (hatesghosts)

[guooey]

Barbara Hamby | Michel Bury

[harsh-repose]

“Ode to the Potato” by Barbara Hamby, read by James Marsters.

[heavensghost]

Barbara Hamby, from ‘Letter to a Lost Friend’.

#barbara hamby #poetry #my art #art journal #love

[soracities]

how lucky we are to be loved / for even a moment

Barbara Hamby, from ‘Letter to a Lost Friend’

#lit #quotes #poetry #barbara hamby #letter to a lost friend #m #x #is this a queue which i see before me? #life everlasting #with your love as my witness

[metamorphesque]

poetry recommendations for december

The Untrustworthy Speaker by Louise Glück

Ashes and Blossoms by Faiz Ahmad Faiz

Raw With Love by Charles Bukowski

Dear [ ] by Nick Lantz

The Language of the Birds by Richard Siken

A Prayer by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Snowdrops by Louise Glück

The Road Away by Kim Sowol

From June to December: Summer Villanelle by Wendy Cope

“After My Brother's Death, I Reflect on the Iliad,” by Elisa Gonzalez

Letter to a Lost Friend by Barbara Hamby

buy me a coffee

#literature #poetry #poems #poetry recs #book recs #december #translated literature #classic literature #dark academia #romantic academia #light academia #poem

[bostonpoetryslam]

Music could not save you, nor the words that gather in my mouth like angry flames of hope. I have swallowed your eyes, lived on them for years, made them into coins for beggars, for bankers in their mausoleums of flesh.

Barbara Hamby, “The Hunter,” from The Alphabet of Desire

#barbara hamby #the alphabet of desire #orchises press #poetry #elegy

[contremineur]

There must be a Russian word to describe what has happened between us, like ostyt, which can be used for a cup of  tea that is too hot, but after you walk to the next room, and return, it is too cool; or perekhotet, which is to want something so much over months and even years that when you get it, you have lost the desire. Pushkin said, when he saw his portrait by Kiprensky, It is like looking into a mirror, but one that flatters me. What is the word for someone who looks into her friend’s face and sees once smooth skin gone like a train that has left the station in Petersburg with its wide avenues and nights at the Stray Dog Cafe, sex with the wrong men, who looked so right by candlelight, when everyone was young and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, painted or wrote all night but nothing good, drank too much vodka, and woke in the painful daylight with skin like fresh cream, books everywhere, Lorca on Gogol, Tolstoy under Madame de Sévigné, so that now, on a train in the taiga of  Siberia, I see what she sees—all my books alphabetized and on shelves, feet misshapen, hands ribbed with raised veins, neck crumpled like last week’s newspaper, while her friends are young, their skin pimply and eyes bright as puppies’, and who can blame her, for how lucky we are to be loved for even a moment, though I can’t help but feel like Pushkin, a rough ball of  lead lodged in his gut, looking at his books and saying Goodbye, my dear friends, as those volumes close and turn back into oblong blocks, dust clouding the gold leaf that once shimmered on their spines.

Barbara Hamby, Letter to a lost friend

#barbara hamby #poetry #quote #lit #excerpt

[loudlylovingreview]

Barbara Hamby: Ode to My Younger Self 

You were so beautiful and stupid though you thought you were smart, and in a way you were, because you loved poetry and Beethoven and apples but why did it take you so long to learn to drink coffeeand eat breakfast? And those boyfriends? Oh, well, you were young and experimenting with everything—drugs, love,dancing at lesbian bars, meditating for a month at a Buddhist retreat, taking the train…

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#Barbara Hamby #Buddhism in America #George Eliot #Jane Austen #Middlemarch #Ode to My Younger Self #Song of Solomon

[niramish]

Letter to a Lost Friend

There must be a Russian word to describe what has happened              between us, like ostyt, which can be used for a cup of  tea that is too hot, but after you walk to the next room,              and return, it is too cool; or perekhotet, which is to want something so much over months              and even years that when you get it, you have lost the desire. Pushkin said, when he saw his portrait by Kiprensky,              “It is like looking into a mirror, but one that flatters me.” What is the word for someone who looks into her friend’s face              and sees once smooth skin gone like a train that has left the station in Petersburg with its wide avenues and nights              at the Stray Dog Cafe, sex with the wrong men, who looked so right by candlelight, when everyone was young              and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, painted or wrote all night but nothing good, drank too much vodka, and woke              in the painful daylight with skin like fresh cream, books everywhere, Lorca on Gogol, Tolstoy under Madame de Sévigné,              so that now, on a train in the taiga of  Siberia, I see what she sees — all my books alphabetized and on shelves,              feet misshapen, hands ribbed with raised veins, neck crumpled like last week’s newspaper, while her friends              are young, their skin pimply and eyes bright as puppies’, and who can blame her, for how lucky we are to be loved              for even a moment, though I can’t help but feel like Pushkin, a rough ball of  lead lodged in his gut, looking at his books              and saying, “Goodbye, my dear friends,” as those volumes close and turn back into oblong blocks, dust clouding              the gold leaf that once shimmered on their spines.

- Barbara Hamby 

#Barbara Hamby #Letter to a Lost Friend #perekhotet

[mythologyofblue]

There must be a Russian word to describe what has happened              between us, like ostyt, which can be used for a cup of  tea that is too hot, but after you walk to the next room,              and return, it is too cool; or perekhotet, which is to want something so much over months              and even years that when you get it, you have lost the desire. Pushkin said, when he saw his portrait by Kiprensky,              “It is like looking into a mirror, but one that flatters me.” What is the word for someone who looks into her friend’s face              and sees once smooth skin gone like a train that has left the station in Petersburg with its wide avenues and nights              at the Stray Dog Cafe, sex with the wrong men, who looked so right by candlelight, when everyone was young              and smoked hand-rolled cigarettes, painted or wrote all night but nothing good, drank too much vodka, and woke              in the painful daylight with skin like fresh cream, books everywhere, Lorca on Gogol, Tolstoy under Madame de Sévigné,              so that now, on a train in the taiga of  Siberia, I see what she sees — all my books alphabetized and on shelves,              feet misshapen, hands ribbed with raised veins, neck crumpled like last week’s newspaper, while her friends              are young, their skin pimply and eyes bright as puppies’, and who can blame her, for how lucky we are to be loved              for even a moment, though I can’t help but feel like Pushkin, a rough ball of  lead lodged in his gut, looking at his books              and saying, “Goodbye, my dear friends,” as those volumes close and turn back into oblong blocks, dust clouding              the gold leaf that once shimmered on their spines.

-Barbara Hamby, ”Letter to a Lost Friend”                

#Barbara Hamby #lit #poetry #poem #friendship