front cover of The Star-Spangled Banner
The Star-Spangled Banner
Denise Duhamel
Southern Illinois University Press, 1999

The Star-Spangled Banner, Denise Duhamel's sixth book of poems, is about falling in love, American-style, with someone who is not American.

In the title poem, a small American girl mishears the first line of "The Star-Spangled Banner" as "José, can you see?", which leads her to imagine a foreign lover of an American woman dressed in a star-spangled gown. The misunderstandings caused by language recur throughout the book: contemplating what "yes" means in different cultures; watching Nickelodeon's "Nick at Nite" with a husband who grew up in the Philippines and never saw The Patty Duke Show; misreading another poet's title "The Difference Between Pepsi and Coke" as "The Difference Between Pepsi and Pope" and concluding that "Pepsi is all for premarital sex. / The Pope won't stain your teeth." Misunderstandings also abound as characters mingle with others from different classes. In "Cockroaches," a father-in-law refers to budget-minded American college students backpacking in Europe as cockroaches, not realizing his daughter-in-law was once, not so long ago, such a student/roach herself.

With welcome levity and refreshing irreverence, The Star-Spangled Banner addresses issues of ethnicity, class, and gender in America.

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front cover of Tilt / Beautiful People
Tilt / Beautiful People
Denise Duhamel, Maureen Seaton, and Aaron Smith
Bridwell Press, 2024
Tilt / Beautiful People brings to life two innovative poetry books integrated into one. 

In Tilt, Denise Duhamel and Maureen Seaton (1947-2023) write through climate change, Maureen’s illness, and the pandemic with their signature wit and poignancy. Their feminist curiosity leads them to poems about gender identity, marriage equality, and the complexities of national politics. Assembled shortly before Maureen’s death, the poems in Tilt tell the story of a friendship rooted in collaborative artistic play. The title of the book gives a nod to the earth’s tilt, which gives us seasons, but also hints that the poems were written at full tilt, these poets hyperaware they only had so much time left to write with one another.

Beautiful People was written back and forth over the course of several months by poets Maureen Seaton and Aaron Smith. Bold and inventive, it moves from sonnets and sestinas to prose poems and so much more. While its center is a love for poetry and art and laughter, the poets also grapple with mortality, sadness, and what it means to be alive on a broken but beautiful planet. Through their literary friendship, they put a mirror to all our lovely faces.
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