V.B. Price

illustrations by Rini Price

7 Deadly Sins

Poems

out of print

A black hole in the living room, a squeeze unable to be denied, this confrontation of pressure fits us into the realm of knots. To see ourselves clearly, how often do we hear iron? The other night, remember that lightning bolt—how it struck your top-knot and sizzled your teeth! Mucho sparks fly in toward the magnet of our stinky little souls.

The line drawn betwixt fumble points, amidst the drift and strain of our inner struggle, here defines the psychomachia, “the conflict between the evolving spirit of one’s better nature and those consuming forces within one which work, like entropy, to undermine and obstruct…”

We’re all immensely successful at falling down! & what better way to study the soil? In this little book, Barrett Price quickens the aperture of mirror and response—while taking the “Moral Tic” and mocking its opinion. Knifeblade and thorn lash, here turned to apricots—homilies to melt the brutal bind. Beneath us all are roots of forgiveness, pulling us deep to where it’s most light.

Virgil’s Death plucks our ears so that we may choose to live—these seven sins ooze and belch at us with similar good intent. How does V.B. Price so deftly portray the empty moments beneath diversion when our weak parts would turn from love? Sympathy and Precision.

—Denise Clegg

Price’s Seven Deadly Sins dissect the vices with a steady hand, showing the mechanism—lures, hooks, poison sacs—by which we debase ourselves. Beautiful and damning, they remind us that our most intimate failings are universal after all.

—Daniel Abraham

Speaking to us, not from on high, but eye to eye—sinner to sinner’s soul—V.B. Price asks us to beat ourselves, not with whips, but gently with wit, wisdom, and laughter. The poems and illustrations work together as mirrors to recognize ourselves, not as mugshots to identify others.

—Mikki Renz Gober

With intricate descriptions and one-liners that can easily become personal mantras. Price’s Seven Deadly Sins is sure to please anyone whose encountered these oddly nonreligious soul diseases. Price’s curiosity, his detailed self-searching examination, helps to give the seven sins a human feel, removing the unexplained cliché religious dogma that so often surrounds them…a joy for the philosophic mind and soul.

—Sue Vorenberg

V.B. Price is a poet, political and environmental columnist, editor, and teacher who has lived and worked in New Mexico for over 40 years. He is a member of the faculty at the University of New Mexico’s General Honors Program where he teaches seminars on Greek and Roman literature in translation, urban issues, and world poetry. He is also an adjunct associate professor at UNM’s School of Architecture and Planning. He is married to Rini Price and they live in Albuquerque.