- Due to an increased amount of spam, new users must request an account, confirm their email address and be approved before creating or editing pages.

From The Literary Underground Wiki

Denise Duhamel (born 1961 in Woonsocket, Rhode Island), is an American poet. Her earliest books take a feminist slant, beginning with Smile (1993) and Girl Soldier (1996); The Woman with Two Vaginas (1995) explores Eskimo folklore from the same perspective. Her best selling and most popular book to date, Kinky (1997), marries her bent for satire, humor, and feminism in portraying an icon of popular culture, the Barbie doll, through an extended series of bitingly satirical postures ("Beatnik Barbie," "Buddhist Barbie," etc.). Two collections that followed, The Star Spangled Banner (1998) and Queen for a Day (2001), move more broadly into American culture to display the same keen satire through the lens of absurdity. Later work is formally various with pantoums, long surreal explorations of American life, and list poems (Mille et un sentiments, 2005). The tone is bright, peppery, and energetic. Two and Two (2005) and Ka Ching (2009) exhibit the same verve and apparently inexhaustible gusto. Prolific, and frequently on the poetry circuit nation-wide, Denise Duhamel was married to the Filipino poet Nick Carbò. Her poetry has been widely anthologized and has appeared in The Best American Poetry annuals.

Life

She received her B.F.A. from Emerson College and her M.F.A. from Sarah Lawrence College.^[1]

She is a New York Foundation for the Arts recipient and has been resident poet at Bucknell University. She has had residencies at Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony.^[2]

Duhamel has also collaborated with Maureen Seaton on Little Novels, Oyl, and Exquisite Politics. Of this collaboration, Duhamel says, "Something magical happens when we write - we find this third voice, someone who is neither Maureen nor I, and our ego sort of fades into the background. The poem matters, not either one of us."^[3]

Duhamel names as some of her influences Lucille Ball, Roseanne Barr, Andrea Dworkin, Alyson Palmer, Amy Ziff and Elizabeth Ziff (who make up the singing group Betty), and the 70s television heroine Mary Hartman.^[3]

Duhamel lives in Hollywood, Florida, and teaches creative writing and literature at Florida International University.

Works

• Girl Soldier (Garden Street Press, 1996)
• How the Sky Fell (1996)
• Ka-Ching (University of Pittsburgh, 2009)
• Kinky (Orchises Press, 1997)
• Mille et un sentiments (Firewheel Editions, 2005)
• Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems (University of Pittsburgh, 2001)
• Smile, (Warm Spring Press, 1993)
• The Star-Spangled Banner, winner of the Crab Orchard Poetry Prize (1999)
• The Woman with Two Vaginas, (Salmon Run Press, 1995)
• Two and Two (University of Pittsburgh, 2005).

Chapbooks

• It's My Body (Egg In Hand Press, 1992)
• Skirted Issues (Stop Light Press, 1990)
• Heaven And Heck (Foundation Press, 1988, 1989, 1990)

References

1. ↑ Poets.org - Poetry, Poems, Bios & More - Denise Duhamel
2. ↑ http://capa.conncoll.edu/duhamel.smile.html
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1} Rock Salt Plum Interviews Denise Duhamel

External links

• The Power of Lawlessness: A Close Reading of Denise Duhamel's "Lawless Pantoum" by Marybeth Rua-Larsen in Shit Creek Review