Safe Word - a review

Christine Hamm's dirty little secret is out. You'll find it here. While I'm not a big reader of erotica in poetry form or otherwise, Safe Word has shown me just how versatile Hamm is as a wordsmith. My earliest exposure to Christine's poetry came through material that has appeared in VLQ - her poem Diary of a Thief was to me, nothing if it was not brilliant.

Her work can be edgy, a quality that I rather like. I suspect that some will get snookered into thinking Safe Word is simply about sex... and that she is just cleverly using some shocking verse to raise some eyebrows and libido at the same time. Is Animal Husbandry really about a woman distraught over her two-timing dog who no longer is satisfied by her? If you say so... but I find that Christine has a way of getting us all tangled up with this chapbook in social commentary that blings with a little linguistic glitter.

She makes you laugh and makes you cry - even in the same poem. Safe Word unwraps the emotional baggage often a part of the human sexual experience and too often wrought with interdiction where our written language is concerned.