Praise and Poems

Robert Hamberger manages to combine an almost Cavafy-esque plainness with complex ideas concerning queerness and vulnerability. In his title sequence the painter Keith Vaughan is celebrated and investigated with lyric elegance and tautness. Hamberger’s exquisite poems invite us into his quixotic, ekphrastic and thrilling world. ~ Richard Scott

Robert Hamberger writes remarkably sensuous poetry, creating its own memorably forceful, dynamic encounter of body and spirit. ~ Mark Doty

For all his playfulness and technical gifts, Hamberger’s writing shimmers with compassion. I can think of few poets whose work is so consistently moving. ~ John McCullough

Skylarks in January

Yesterday a murder
of crows ganged up
to scare a buzzard.

This morning I lift
my eyes to song:
three skylarks

twiddling notes thirty feet
over gorse and hills.
Small commotion of wings

hovering
precisely where they please:
three sparks under cloud,

cinders saved from the fire
– falling, falling.
What do I know?

Three quick smudges
barely higher than grass
settle, like the end of song.