Barbara Hamby

Senior Lecturer, Distinguished University Scholar
WMS 419
Creative writing, poetry

BARBARA HAMBY, Distinguished University Scholar, MA, Florida State University (1981), specializes in poetry and fiction. She is the author of six books of poetry, most recently On the Street of Divine Love: New and Selected Poems (2014) and Bird Odyssey (2018). Her book of linked stories, Lester Higata's 20th Century, won the 2010 Iowa Short Fiction Award/John Simmons Award and was published by the University of Iowa Press. She also co-edited an anthology of poetry, Seriously Funny, with her husband David Kirby. She was a 2010 Guggenheim fellow in poetry. Her poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Poetry, The Paris Review, Yale Review, American Poetry Review, and many other many other magazines. as well as Best American Poetry 2000, 2009 and 2010.

MAGAZINE LINKS:

BOOKS

  • Bird Odyssey, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018.
  • On the Street of Divine Love, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014.
  • Lester Higata's 20th Century, University of Iowa Press, 2010.
  • Seriously Funny, co-edited with David Kirby, University of Georgia Press, 2009.
  • All-Night Lingo Tango, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009.
  • Babel, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004.
  • The Alphabet of Desire, New York University Press, 1999.
  • Delirium, University of North Texas Press, 1995.
  • Skin (chapbook), Silverfish Review Press, 1995.
  • Eating Bees (chapbook), New Sins Press, 1992.

ANTHOLOGIES

  • The Penguin Anthology of 20th Century American Poetry, edited by Rita Dove, Penguin, 2011.
  • Good Poems: American Places, edited by Garrison Keillor, Viking, 2011.
  • Good Poems for Hard Times, edited by Garrison Keillor, Viking, 2005.
  • The Paris Review Book of Heartbreak, Madness, Sex, Love, Betrayal, Outsiders, Intoxication, War, Whimsy, Horrors, God, Death, Dinner, Baseball, Travels, The Art of Writing, and Everything Else in the World Since 1953, Picador, 2003.

HONORS

  • Boston Review's Aura Estrada Fiction Prize for "Dole Girl," 2015.
  • Guggenheim Fellowship, 2010.
  • Iowa Short Fiction/John Simmons Prize for Lester Higata's Twentieth Century, 2010.
  • AWP Donald Hall Poetry Prize for Babel, 2003.
  • New York University Prize for Poetry for The Alphabet of Desire, 1998.
  • Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts, 1996.
  • Kate Tufts Discovery Prize for the best first book of poetry published in 1995 for Delirium, 1996.
  • Norma Farber First Book Prize for Delirium from the Poetry Society of America, 1996.
  • Vassar Miller Prize for Poetry for Delirium, 1994.
  • Gerald Cable Poetry Chapbook Prize for Skin, 1994.
  • Three Individual Artist Grants from the Florida Arts Council: 1982, 1988, 1997.