Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems

by Denise Duhamel

"Somewhere between Sex and the City, Sharon Olds and Spalding Grey lies the poetry of Denise Duhamel, who in six volumes during the 1990s (all from small independent or small university presses) established herself as a vivacious, sarcastic, uninhibited and sometimes sex-obsessed observer of contemporary culture. Long fascinated by downtown New York, Duhamel got poetic mileage from her once-rough neighborhoods. Now she lives and teaches in this new-and-selected sums up her NYC years . . . Its humor, anger and forceful personality could make the book a genuine popular hit." --Publishers Weekly "Duhamel is an entertainer, as her new, retrospective collection confirms. . . . Throughout the book, each poem is utterly engaging, as hard to abandon as a chapter in a taut thriller." --Booklist Celebrates ideas and topics that aren't often the subect of bards and poets. Her playful, inventive way of string together ideas is evident. . . . Despite the frolicsome nature of much of her work, Duhamel writes incisively about serious themes and issues. The clash between high and low art never seems abraisive in Duhamel's work." --Pittsburgh Tribune- Review "Duhamel writes about Garcia-Lorca's Deli, Georgia O'Keefe's pelvis, a Barbie Doll in a Twelve-Step Program, Barbie as a Bisexual, Barbie's GYN appointment, and the difference between Pepsi and the Pope. . . . If you like knee-slapping, quasi-existential poetry, go out and pick up a Queen for a Day." -- The Review of Arts, Literature, Philosophy, and the Humanities "Engagingly charts her evolution as a fictionist-from ribald, bemused poems about body parts and coming of age dramas to increasingly sophisticated mock-narratives. Her work is tremendous fun, but often there's an underpinning of sadness in it as well, which keeps the poems from being mere play. You'll want to read parts of this book aloud to your smart friends. Or to give it as a gift." --Stephen Dunn "Denise Duhamel is a red-headed, red-lipped wild woman, a human and humane poet who isn't afraid to tackle any violence, racism, A.I.D.S., bulimia, childishness, the myth of Bluebeard, the phenomenon of Barbie. It's been a singular joy to read this "selected" and see Duhamel's work grow and develop over the years. Queen for a Day is exuberant, brazen, bold, honest as hell, audaciously unpretentious and outrageously self-referential, a Frank O'Hara meets Lucille Ball meets Sandra Bernhard of a sin verguenza!" --Dorianne Laux Denise Duhamel's Queen for a Day includes poems from her five previous full-length books (The Star-Spangled Banner, Kinky, Girl Soldier, The Woman with Two Vaginas, and Smile!) as well as her chapbook, How the Sky Fell. Her poems have been anthologized widely, including four editions of The Best American Poetry. Her work has been featured on NPR's "All Things Considered," MPR's "The Writers' Almanac," and PBS's "Fooling with Words." She has collaborated with the poet Maureen Seaton in two Oyl and Exquisite Politics. Duhamel is assistant professor at Florida International University in Miami.

Genres: Poetry

120 pages, Paperback

First published February 22, 2001

About the author

Denise Duhamel's most recent books are Ka-Ching! (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009), Two and Two (Pittsburgh, 2005), Mille et un Sentiments (Firewheel, 2005); Queen for a Day: Selected and New Poems (Pittsburgh, 2001); The Star-Spangled Banner (Southern Illinois University Press, 1999); and Kinky (Orchises Press, 1997). A bilingual edition of her poems, Afortunada de mí (Lucky Me), translated into Spanish by Dagmar Buchholz and David Gonzalez, came out in 2008 with Bartleby Editores (Madrid.) A recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, she is an associate professor at Florida International University in Miami.

Reviews

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poetry for when you want to bring out the feminist in you. There's a lot of humor in here with an undercurrent of sadness. I especially like the Barbie series of poems (One Afternoon When Barbie Wanted to Join the Military, etc.) and the poems told in the style of an Inuit tale (The Woman with Two Vaginas, etc.)

This is a collection of poems selected from several of her books published between 1993 and 2001.

[john steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

aw, denise duhamel, i love you. i love you 'cause i want to be john ashbery, too, and 'cause you're everyone's favorite beautiful poetry aunt.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actual Rating: 4.5 of 5 thorns

This collection features selected poems from her previously published books, giving the reader a sense of her work, as well as new poems, showing the reader where she was headed (in 2001). I love the self-consciousness of these poems and that they all have a punch to them, giving the reader much to ponder after the end of the poem. Duhamel is one of my favorite poets.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like funny poetry. In fact, I prefer funny poetry. Duhamel isn't just plain funny, or silly, or giggly. She's wry, snotty, quirky, strange and askew...which is sometimes the view we need of life to see truth...even when in an existential crisis.

[Deja Bertucci · Rating 5 out of 5]

4 stars? 5 stars? 4 and a half?

Perhaps uneven in parts, but over all these are some of the best poems I've read in a long while.

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of Duhamel's poems from several books from 1993 to 1999. She reminds me a lot of Sharon Olds. I was very entertained.

[Alex Rye · Rating 4 out of 5]

“it was just the alabaster moon, a little girl, and a young woman. / it was definitely one of those “therapeutic i” moments. / a moment that would have reminded gardner / of a much better literary moment, maybe something / that shakespeare wrote about with more flair.”

i was gifted this collection by my professor for my advanced poetry workshop and it was such a joy to read, especially knowing it was handpicked for me by someone who knows my poetry intimately. duhamel has such a direct way of writing that is so evocative.

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

[Jennifer Collins · Rating 1 out of 5]

When I began reading this collection, I found myself sucked completely into the world of each poem--I found pleasure and surprise and admiration, and something to think about. And then I read the next few sections, which I found a bit flat...but that was okay, as I was still on a high from that first section, looking forward to what would come next. And then the next few sections were overly crude, and a bit boring, followed by one interesting poem...followed by sections full of poems weighted down by self-conscious name-dropping and diary-entry-sounding poems that read more like notations of ideas or emails than fully wrought and considered poems.

So, overall, the book was sincerely disappointing. By the end, I felt more like I was reading the author's correspondence, unfiltered, than a book of poems meant for a reader who doesn't know her personally, or care who she knows, so much as they would care about her work and what she had to say. It may be that I'll pick up the first book poems were excerpted from here, written in 1993, though I don't think that's the one already on my shelf. And/or, perhaps I'll read that one, or perhaps I won't.

As I said, by the end, this was more and more disappointing, I'm afraid. Not something I'd recommend, though I know I've enjoyed some of her works in the past, and I did enjoy some of those first few. They didn't make up for the whole of the book, though, simply enough.

[Courtney LeBlanc · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of poems about being a woman, feminism, hope, success, and survival.

from Bulimia: "A kiss has nothing to do with sex, / she thinks. Not really. That engulfing, that trying to take / all of another in for nourishment, to become one with her, to become / part of her cells. The way she must have had everything she wanted / in the womb, without asking."

from For the One Man Who Likes My Thighs: "I tried as far back as seventh grade, kneading my lumpy legs as though I were making bread. / Cottage Cheese Knees, Thunder Things— / I heard it all—under the guise of teasing, / under the leaky umbrella mistaken for affection."

from June 13, 1995: "where an archaeologist will cradle that girl-child's skull / in his arms for a minute before he dusts her off / and measures her eye sockets, as if he's truly sorry about what happened / all those decades and centuries and cruelties ago."

[Michelle]

This book of greatest hits draws from six books (plus some new poems) published in as many prolific writing years. The voice is bold and animated. The poems tend to be longer narratives, but move along with momentum and skillful attention to language and rhythm. Duhamel’s speaker is both vulnerable and commanding. She uses humor, irony, and an invigorated imagination to create work that reaches beyond its obvious political, social, and gender concerns

[Danielle DeTiberus · Rating 2 out of 5]

These poems are not the stuff I turn to in times of deep existential crises, nor would I turn to them to read to a beloved on his/her deathbed. However, these poems are just plain fun. They usually don’t take themselves too seriously and the tone is at once sassy and intelligent. Duhamel writes like Ani DiFranco sings. Brassy, sharp, a little repetitive, and a little indulgent— but always well worth jamming out to.

[Terri R · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like Denise Duhamel and this collection has some gems. I agree with the review on the back that her titles make you want to read the texts they head, like Blue Beard's One-Hundredth Wife or Barbie as a Religious Fanatic or The Difference Between Pepsi and Pope. Funny and harsh and thoughtful.

[Allyson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Barbie poems! Enough said.

[Jenni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well edited selected. Many good poems.

[Juliet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh, something about it just doesn't seem all that fresh any more.

All the Barbie poems for example, despite being somewhat entertaining, seem overly ubiquitous and too easy.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bold and racy.

[Tamara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't like it as much as the Barbie collection.

[Molly M M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Everything by her is probably golden.

[Jan Moens · Rating 4 out of 5]

7/10