Reviewed by Charles Rammelkamp
In Which
by Denise Duhamel
Rattle
Nov 2024, $9.00, 36 pages, ISBN: 978-1-931307-59-8
Denise Duhamel is always fun to read. She’s clever, audacious, outspoken. In Which is a collection of poems, she tells her grandnephew in “Poem in Which Nick Helps Me Conjure More ‘In Which’ Poems,” toward the end of this lovely book, about “imagining alternative lives for myself.” And how!
The very first of the twenty-one “In Which” poems sets the tone. “Self-Portrait in Which I Am Not Polite” begins, “I’m not wearing lipstick. Hell, I haven’t even / brushed my teeth,” and half a dozen lines later she goes on:
I cut the line, honk my horn, chew with a full mouth,
then burp. The piercings in my ear lobes have closed,
my heart has closed. And my clothes? I’ve stopped
doing laundry. I’ve stopped the tedium of handwashing
my delicates. I’ve given up on bras. They hurt.
Seven lines later the poem concludes triumphantly, “I’ve never felt more like myself.”
“Poem in Which I Try to Be Social” features a similarly sarcastic persona, mocking that canned “friendly” message voice with which we’re all so familiar.
I hope you have enjoyed this poem!
For others, click on the links below.
I do my best to pound rhyme and rhythm
into this algorithm. I’m so grateful
for the community we are growing together.
“Poem in Which I Pursued My Dream of Doing Stand-up” reveals Duhamel as the comedian (comedienne?) at her essence. It’s a made-up history of a career about a woman who “makes fun of her appearance.” “I embraced my fat because John Waters / thought fat was hilarious.” She goes on about emulating Phyllis Diller and Joan Rivers. “I didn’t care if I embarrassed my family.” She describes the late night open mics, the jeering crowds, collaborating with Roseanne Barr (“we’d bump our humongous bellies”). But then the overeating and slovenly ways catch up with her, and she has bypass surgery, loses two hundred pounds, and “my career in comedy / was over.” Now what? “I had to pivot.” The poem ends on the funniest line of all: “I put my efforts into becoming a minor poet.”
Denise Duhamel has her serious side, too, if often couched in irony. In “Poem in Which I Have Doubts and Then Some Faith” she laments the demise of people reading books – people on the beach glued to their phones reading Instagram, texts, Whatever. And then she notes, “DeSantis wants to ban books,” referring to the autocratic governor of Florida, where she lives,
even though he wrote one. My friend Michael says
I should try to get banned—have DeSantis make an example
of me to sell more copies—but these days banning seems
dire. Plus, who’s to say people would even buy my book?
More likely they’d just read an excerpt on HuffPost
and then write a mean comment.
“Poem in Which I Realize What I Have Taken for Granted” further elaborates on the concerning state of our culture and society.
free speech life jackets tap water planes
seeds safety for children that the STOP sign meant something
electricity Wi-Fi a flushing toilet your understanding
mail delivery laws bank accounts FEMA
The list goes on (breathable air, doctors, prescriptions) and the short eleven-line poem ends, “freedom from tyranny:
my rights my writing my right to privacy
Similarly, “Poem in Which I Invite Melodrama” imagines a dystopia in which America has become The Handmaid’s Tale on steroids. “I’m shoveling toxic waste with other post-menopausal women,” she starts, and it just gets worse.
I lost my teaching job when colleges closed
themselves to women. All my poetry books—the ones I wrote,
the ones I read—have been burned. The resistance we put up
didn’t work. All the sisterhood I so believed in fell apart.
She describes being abducted by guards and tossed into a compound with “all the other useless old ladies,” the ones with whom she shovels toxic waste.
We sleep on the ground, our ankles chained to each other
though there is nowhere to escape in this version of America.
But generally Denise Duhamel makes you smile with her wit. “Poem in Which I Am a Cartoon Character,” “Poem in Which I’m an Urban Planner Like My High School Aptitude Test Predicted,” “Poem in Which I Contemplate Imposter Syndrome” – all of them bring a sardonic smile. “Poem in Which I Contemplate Loneliness Through a Peephole,” a short ten-line poem which is shaped something like a peephole, is likewise witty and amusing. She is witnessing a couple having a fight (“Am I / wrong to enjoy this scene through my one-way lens?”). They are screaming at each other, framed in the circle of the peephole
like the end of an old Looney Tunes
cartoon. Then the ping of the
elevator—That’s all folks!—
and they disappear.
In Which is a delight to read. Once again, Denise Duhamel delivers.
About the reviewer: Charles Rammelkamp is Prose Editor for BrickHouse Books in Baltimore. His poetry collection, A Magician Among the Spirits, poems about Harry Houdini, is a 2022 Blue Light Press Poetry winner. A collection of poems and flash called See What I Mean? was recently published by Kelsay Books, and another collection of persona poems and dramatic monologues involving burlesque stars, The Trapeze of Your Flesh, was just published by BlazeVOX Books.