Blowout (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780822962366)

Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award. In Blowout, Denise Duhamel asks the same question that Frankie Lyman & the Teenagers asked back in 1954--"Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" Duhamel's poems readily admit that she is a love-struck fool, but also embrace the "crazy wisdom" of the Fool of the Tarot deck and the fool as entertainer or jester. From a kindergarten crush to a failed marriage and beyond, Duhamel explores the nature of romantic love and her own limitations. She also examines love through music, film, and history--Michelle and Barak Obama's inauguration and Cleopatra's ancient sex toy. Duhamel chronicles the perilous cruelties of love gone awry, but also reminds us of the compassion and transcendence in the aftermath. In "Having a Diet Coke with You," she asserts that "love poems are the most difficult poems to write / because each poem contains its opposite its loss / and that no matter how fierce the love of a couple / one of them will leave the other / if not through betrayal / then through death." Yet, in Blowout, Duhamel fiercely and foolishly embraces the poetry of love.

Author: Denise Duhamel
ISBN-10: 0822962365
ISBN-13: 9780822962366
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Language: English
Published: 02/17/2013
Pages: 104
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.40lbs
Size: 8.40h x 6.00w x 0.30d
Award: National Book Critics Circle Award - Finalist

Review Citation(s):
Booklist 02/15/2013 pg. 18
Library Journal 03/15/2013 pg. 112