Writing Blurbs [by Nin Andrews]: Part Three

Another Ode to Denise Duhamel

Reading Denise I always have this urge to call her up and say yeah, and wow, and me, too, and oh gross, and yes, yes, really I want to talk about your poems, like the one about Barbie who is trying to have sex with Ken, and I remember thinking poor Barbie, and Ken really was a sorry excuse for a male. I’ve never liked a square-jawed man with a crew cut and no dick, but a lot of women would. I know. It’s sad.  But I digress . . .

Because the truth is I am newly in love with Denise’s poem about a woman writing a poem in a Maidenform bra, called “I Dreamed I Wrote This Sestina in my Maidenform Bra,” and I thought and I think how perfect it is, and how the form of a sestina reminds me of a woman in a brassiere, and maybe panties, too, with lace, and silk, with pink roses or lavender, and how a man in Fruit of the Looms or even Calvin Kleins wouldn’t look anything like a sestina.  No, he’d be a haiku. And then I think of other favorites, like the one about Nick at Nite which, even if it is about the difference btw Americans and Filipinos, I think it’s also about the difference btw men and women, how we say yes and mean no.  Or another time.  Or we say no, and mean talk me into it?  Or, get lost asshole, depending on the night and the who and the when. Or maybe the if.  Or whether it’s a poem or a story, and some men and nights are the one and some are the other ones, if you know what I mean. Poems are much easier to think of as nudes. Which reminds me that I love the poem Denise wrote about swimming nude with Nick, and I really love that she doesn’t leave Nick’s penis out of the poem or out the salty water but says how tiny it grew, and I want to tell her about the penises in the Maine water and how these penises pray they’ve never been born, that’s how cold it is, and if you see them, you might think they never have been, and I know people are going to think I only think of penises when they read this, even the little tiny ones, and of course they’re right. 

-- Nin Andrews