“You want to make a representative selection, but at the same time, you want to give a sense of the whole project. I have this big conflict in my writing life that I'm trying to work out all the time.” GivingWritingTryingConflictWork OutWriting Life Author:Barbara Hamby
“I was born in New Orleans, but I grew up in Hawaii. That was a paradise. That's a paradise I keep inside of me all the time. It's funny, I don't really write too much in poetry about Hawaii, but I published a book of stories a couple of years ago.” WritingBookCouple Author:Barbara Hamby
“I've been writing fiction as long as I've been writing poetry. It's just that the poetry took off, and it took me a lot longer to figure out how to write a story.” WritingLongWriting Poetry Author:Barbara Hamby
“I know that one of the things that I really did to push myself was to write more formal poems, so I could feel like I was more of a master of language than I had been before. That was challenging and gratifying in so many ways. Then with these new poems, I've gone back to free verse, because it would be easy to paint myself into a corner with form. I saw myself becoming more opaque with the formal poems than I wanted to be. It took me a long time to work back into free verse again. That was a challenge in itself. You're always having to push yourself.” WritingLongLanguageEasyChallengesPaintVersesPush Yourself Author:Barbara Hamby
“One of things I write about a lot is the role of women. An older friend of mine said that she feels like there's always a tension between wanting to be free and wanting to be cherished. I think that's one of the things that my whole book speaks to, wanting to break out of the confines of the roles that are prescribed for women and yet at the same time, not wanting to be totally free. You want to have intimate relationships. It's that bursting out of confinement.” ThinkingWritingBookSpeakBreakIntimateTension Author:Barbara Hamby
“For 2,500 years, people have been writing odes. Why? I think that there's something innately human in wanting to praise the world even though it's disappointing in so many ways. There's always that tension.” PeopleThinkingWorldWritingPraiseTensionDisappointing Author:Barbara Hamby
“Cynie Cory roams the outer reaches of the heart’s territory, from the snowy winter of family life to the tropical jungles of love. She wears her heart on her sleeve and it is as big as the country she writes about. Is she the quintessential American girl? You bet she is, part Annie Oakley, part Emily Dickinson—sharpshooting poet of wild nights. She zooms in on the detritus of love—the broken fragments, the fallen leaves—and puts together a collage that is as heartbreaking as it is beautiful. Watch out—she’s driving down your street.” WritingHeartCountryBigsTogetherBeautifulNightGirlWatchesStreetsPoetBrokenWinterDrivingFallenTerritoryFragmentsJungleFamily LifeSleevesHeartbreakingEmilyTropicalAnnieCollagesSnowyQuintessentialZoomFallen LeavesWild Nights Author:Barbara Hamby
