Seriously Funny: Poems About Love, Death, Religion, Art, Politics, Sex, and Everything Else Paperback – January 1, 2010

My review in a nutshell: If you love contemporary poetry, get this book. If you love accessible poetry, get this book. And if you love poetry with literary depth, get this book.I am a huge fan of David Kirby and Barbara Hamby. They are refreshing voices in a crowded American poetry scene. So anything with their name(s) associated with it is worth the purchase sight unseen.I've now spent a few months with this book, and it keeps delivering.I keep pulling it off the shelf and letting the pages fall open, and more often than not, I get serendipity.Like the Billy Collins poem "The Trouble with Poetry," (it's not in this collection, but 4 of his are) reading these poems makes you want to write more poetry.I hope you will add this book to your collection, and look up other work by David and Barbara. You won't be disappointed.

Something like 200 poems, classic and new. Sectioned into categories. It’s all good. Favorites: James Tate’s “Constant Defender” (I have the book), Charles Harper Webb’s “Jackass: The Viewer”, John Ashbery’s “The Instruction Manual” (read it in college in a Norton anthology), Kenneth Koch’s “You Were Wearing” (which was also in that Norton anthology), Ron Koertge’s “Off-Track Betting”, Gary Soto’s story-poem “The Wrestler’s Heart”, Kim Addonizio’s “Bad Girl” (with that great opening sentence), Wanda Coleman’s “Wanda, Why Aren’t You Dead?” (shout it), Billy Collins’ “Workshop”, Sharon Olds’ “The Prepositions”, Frank O’Hara’s “Ave Maria”, Charles Simic’s “St. Thomas Aquinus” (what a final image), and B.H. Fairchild’s “Brazil”. I performed Gregory Corso’s “Marriage” when I was an undergraduate. More new favorites: Tony Hoagland’s “America” (killer last line), Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s “Boss of the Food”, Andrew Hudgins’ “Heat Lightning in a Time of Drought”, Mark Halliday’s “Muck-Clump” (feel like I’ve lived that one), and Dean Young’s list poem “I Said Yes but I Meant No”. Great to have these all together in one book.

David Kirby and Barbara Hamby are both poets who specialize in seriously funny poems, and they're very good at recognizing good poems by others that fit into this narrow but wondrous category.What we have here is 400 or so pages of accessible contemporary poetry that is:1) good2) treats some serious subject with respect and depth3) is funnyExactly as the title promises. You could dig for hours and read through a lot of mediocre poetry yourself to find these gems. Thank goodness the editors have done it for you.Buy the book. You won't regret it, and you're likely to find contemporary poets, new to you, whose books you will enjoy.

This book was delivered without a dust jacket. It has a plain navy cover. When you pay so much for an item you’d like to at least get the product as shown. Disappointing! Luckily, this does not hinder the entertaining content.

Have been teaching this book in college classes for a couple of years now, and it has everything. I haven't found a better collection of poetry for poets who are either just starting out, or who have been at it for decades. Adopt this one over all those sorry Norton anthologies!

Great selection of light-hearted poetry.

These poems are great quality work and very interesting.

Some of the poems are laugh out loud. Some of them elicited a chuckle. Some of them are, hmmm...what I would call interesting. Keep an open mind folks. This is not a seriously funny in the sense that your belly will hurt from laughter.