Blind Items

by Dina Del Bucchia, Anthony Bidulka

Dina Del Bucchia takes celebrities very personally — maybe too personally.

What would you do if you met Lindsay Lohan in a Walmart parking lot? James Franco in a thrift shop? The Olsen twins behind a dumpster? Blind Items puts you in contact with celebrities in the ways you’ve always dreamed. These hypermodern confessional poems are funny, strange, and very, very sexy. In this, her second collection, Del Bucchia tears down the fourth wall of tabloid journalism with her teeth.

Genres: Poetry

400 pages, Paperback

First published May 15, 2014

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blind Items is a product of tabloid culture. With its appropriation of living celebrities and projection of the author's fantasies upon a given celebrity's persona (sometimes to the extent of reassigning the celebrity's identity beyond recognition), this collection is reminiscent of Ellen Kennedy's Sometimes My Heart Pushes My Ribs . The poems named after celebrities are juxtaposed against poems that address anonymity, all of which are named "Blind Item" (presumably to emphasize the uniformity of anonymity; they are everyone and no one)...

Celebrities...

Over in
a flash. So
fast. By the time he
pulls out, rolls off,
I realize
it was a mistake.
Bad scene. A doing-it-
for-the-sake-
of-being-able-to-say-
that-I'd-done-it.
Never even watched
an entire episode of Next
Generation. I bleach
the sheets. Trekkers
will be angry. Friends
will be disgusted
by my lack of enthusiasm.
He deserves better, they'll say.
When I finally
do tell a friend,
all I can remember
is how big
my nose looked
reflected in his shiny bald head.

- Patrick Stewart, pg. 13

* * *

I want our love
to be more conversational,
but Quentine Tarantino stuffs my mouth
with socks, stones, newsprint,
tests my jaw bones,
stretches my limits.
I strain
to pull a sentence together,
words garbled in my throat.
He talks
at the staccato clip
as he assembles new combinations
of objects, muffles, inserts.
I groan. Every sound ignored.
I'm unable to tell him
his dialogue is subpar.

- Quentine Tarantino, pg. 29

* * *

Makes terrible movies.
Makes me uncomfortable.
Makes splitting dinner bills complicated.
Makes out with beautiful Frenchmen.
Makes rooms glow alive.
Makes exercise more like exfoliation.
Makes magazines glossier.
Makes me seem terrible.
Makes milkshakes without dairy.
Makes a terrible friend.

- Halle Berry, pg. 64

Blind items...

She thought nobody
saw her on the "I Saw You"s,
but she didn't count
on someone
actually writing one for her.
The boy from Pilates
with the frayed mat.
Someone who saw
her stretch and arch,
mumble under
her weight, slim
moments between
movements. He must have
looked for himself listed,
attempts
to find someone
looking for him.
Instead, he saw details
she wrote about herself,
and he didn't mind.
He knew she knew
what she was doing,
convincing herself,
baiting people in reverse.

- Blind Item, pg. 16

* * *

After the final exam,
grade looked at
through a haze
of last sips
from a dozen liquor bottles,
flavours as disparate
as all the options
she isn't sure she has:
sour cherry, lime,
sweets, bitters,
and something
she can't taste,
a sting that lives
like an abscess
in her cheek.

- Blind Item, pg. 34

* * *

Who said she wished for a better place
to work on whom to hate? Who said
"I can't tell from this garden suite
how to tell who deserves
the clarity of my rage"?

- Blind Item, pg. 68

[Caitlin Ffrench · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely hilarious and heart breaking.

[Vontel]

I read all the Russell Quant mysteries, and would have loved to see even more books in the series.

[Pants · Rating 5 out of 5]

Stunning! A potent mash of celebrity satire, lyricism and insight. Del Bucchia is a great observer of contemporary culture and helps makes meaning and emotion out of our seemingly superficial preoccupations.

Carries on poetry's long tradition of speaking to its time.

[Doretta Lau · Rating 5 out of 5]

How can a book be this funny, pop culture savvy, and heartbreaking all at once? I love the cadence of these poems. I want to quote lines from BLIND ITEMS to everyone I know.

"Her affection hurts at first. Funny people have the most rage."

[Adam]

A+ would be on the cover of this book again

[Alexis]

Poems about celebrities. Really quite funny. :)


I am confused by the description of the book. There has been some sort of mistake here.