Without Further A-Du-hamel...A bad pun and a critical post

            Denise Duhamel employs a fairly wide variety of poetic forms in her book, Ka-Ching, as well as a few pieces of prose, and some works that are in between.  As variant as her form is, her subjects seem almost equally varied.  In my opinion some of her most interesting works in this book are “Apple,” “Please Don’t Sit Like a Frog, Sit Like a Queen,” and “Anagram America.”  These all employ extremely different forms, and cover very different subjects.

            In her poem, “Apple,” Duhamel uses a fairly simple form, each stanza made of three lines.  There is no rhyme pattern, and she employs language that is absolutely conversational, in the style we discussed as ‘hyper-talk.’  This poem discusses the speaker helping her friend’s child do homework, with the context that her friend is going through a really nasty divorce.  It’s really powerful, with lines that move the reader to empathize, though they lack typical “poetic” style, such as the lines:

“My godson had missed a lot of school

because of the separation, the restraining order,

the bad nights of sleep at the hotel,

the cough syrup, the bolted door.

My friend needed her son

with her as she went to the lawyer’s office,

the safety deposit box, the Starbucks

where she wept and blew her nose into grainy napkins.

Now it was time for his homework.”

Although these lines don’t have evocative, flourish language, they still evoke the desperation of the situation, the feeling of being overwhelmed and lost, and Duhamel brings you to feel for the child further, describing the homework session and the immense frustration the child feels.  There’s no beating around the bush, it’s a raw moment, as their lives coming unraveled, captured in verse.  She goes on to put him to bed, after,

“I held him until he stopped kicking,

until he snapped fine. He scrawled

a few purple loopy marks that went

outside the lines.  Each apple had oval eyes

and a U-shaped smile that seemed to mock us.

I wrote a note to Mrs. Harris explaining

Patrick’s crayon situation, which I hoped explained

the whole situation.  The whites of Patrick’s eyes

were full of red squiggles”

Duhamel makes you feel the anguish of the child, the frustration, the desire to find safety and comfort, with a conversational tone, relaying heartbreak and all seriousness in a way that few writers seem to be able to do.

            Another interesting poem in Duhamel’s book is “Please Don’t Sit Like a Frog, Sit Like a Queen,” which is a villanelle, inspired by bathroom stall graffiti from a university in the Philippines.  The tone of this poem is dramatically different from the tone of “Apple,” instead of serious, seeming to poke fun at the way women primp and preen and attempt to find wealthy men, insinuating that women ought to never do things that may be seen as undignified or unladylike.  The tone seems entirely to be joking, with lines like,

“Keep your breath minty and your teeth white and clean.

Paint your nails so they glisten, ten pearls.

Don’t sit like a frog, sit like a queen.

Smile, especially when you feel mean.

Keep your top down when you take your car for a whirl.

Remember to pamper, remember to preen.”

The form of a villanelle, I think, offers the ability to make the poem seem to be almost sing-songy, giving it a sort of chiding feeling.  It comes across sort of like an older woman telling younger girls how to behave, reminiscent of girls’ “Finishing Schools.”  I think Duhamel does a really great job, in this poem, of mocking the way women behave, and the lengths they sometimes go to in order to land a wealthy or well-off man.  It’s a very clever way to evolve off a simple bathroom stall scrawl.

            In “Anagram America,” Denise Duhamel takes an extremely different tone, serious and political, no longer relaying her life events or silly little sestinas.  This poem has a strange structure, free verse essentially, with each line ending on a different arrangement of the letters in “America,” and the tone is a bit darker, it seems.  Duhamel seems to write from the perspective of an average American citizen, challenged about America’s integrity.  The speaker agrees some things are skewed, with government and politics, but continues to talk about the great things we have, “And what about our generous tax refund system? I race aim-/ lessly through the stuffed aisles of Dollar-Rama. Ice/ cube trays and pink sponges and a digital camera. I/ buy them all!  Now that’s America.”  She seems to be making a point that we are too distracted by our own problems and consumerism to be bothered with politics and all the problems in the world.  The whole thing seems an exercise in word manipulation, and political manipulation.  She finishes with a line that almost spells this out, “Welcome to America, where the letters can be twisted into almost anything.”