I hate Christmas. Every December, the seasonal blues hit as soon as Thanksgiving ends. I wish I could fall asleep on the last weekend in November and wake up on January 2. A friend of mine, who is in AA, suggested that I should try faking it until I make it. So, I have been dressing in a red sweater and green leggings and wearing a little red cap. I look like an aging Christmas elf. (I despise Xmas outfits, so I am going all-out.) I even have a holly berry pin in my white hair and a blinky tree brooch on my sweater. If anyone looks at me funny, I smile and say, 'Tis the season. And if they ask how I am, I say, “Jolly, very jolly, thank you so much. Are you jolly, too?”
Well, are you?
Right now, how could I (or anyone) not be jolly when listening to Maria Carey sing “All I Want for Christmas." Or Bobby Helms sing “Jingle Bell Rock” or Andy Williams croon “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Or Michael Bublé, “Have a Holly Jolly Christmas.” Who can resist singing along with them?
And by golly I do feel almost jolly imagining a world in which I am someone else, someone who loves all the music and manic shopping and traffic and decorating and cooking and office-partying and fruit cakes and eggnog (I think fruit cake and eggnog should be outlawed) . . . If I were someone else, I might even write poems about this other life/world in which I can become someone else.
Which is exactly what Denise Duhamel does in her hilarious and brilliant new chapbook, In Which. Reading her poems, I feel less like a grinch and more like I am in the company of a kindred spirit. Oh, Denise, I think to myself as I read, your poems are a gift to the world.
POEM IN WHICH I PURSUED MY DREAM OF DOING STAND-UP
by Denise Duhamel
—from In Which
2024 Rattle Chapbook Prize Winner