Denise Duhamel is the author of several poetry collections—including Ka-Ching! (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009) and Blowout (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012)—and is a professor at Florida International University in Miami. A former contributor to The Journal, Duhamel’s new poem “Ouroboros” is featured in our upcoming 40th Anniversary Issue (37.1).
Recently, in a conversation with Poetry Editor Michael Marberry, Duhamel spoke about this upcoming poem, the prose-poem form, and the benefits/drawbacks of poetic labeling.
Michael Marberry: Denise Duhamel! It’s so very cold, wet, and rainy today in Ohio—which makes me grumpy and jealous of all the folks (like yourself) basking in what I imagine are those perpetually sunny Floridian days. Ease my grumpiness a bit. Tell me about your poem “Ouroboros,” which is appearing in our special upcoming 40th Anniversary Issue of The Journal. It’s such a strange and wonderful piece. Where in the world did it come from? What inspired it? How do you see this poem operating with/against your other work right now and/or your larger oeuvre? Is this poem part of a project you’re currently working on; and, if so, do you care to give us a sneak peek about said project?
Denise Duhamel: Thank you, Michael! I am happy The Journal is publishing “Ouroboros.”
As our culture moves more toward exposing women’s bodies in advertising and music and fashion, I have become interested in how young girls see themselves and the glamorized bodies around them. When I was growing up, the word “tween” hadn’t been coined and there wasn’t, by the culture at large, this complacency about the sexualization of young girls. “Ouroboros” grew out of remembering my own early peeks at pornography. I am very interested in women being subjects rather than objects, so in that way, “Ouroboros” is a continuation of one of my obsessions. I am between books right now and in that freefall of writing—so I’m not doing a project exactly, though I am writing quite a lot of prose poems.
MM: It’s interesting to hear you talk about where “Ouroboros” originated from—culturally, politically, personally, etc.—because much of your work seems to deal with both depictions and perceptions of women, which actually leads to my next question. You’ve been called a lot of things: a feminist poet, a humor poet, a collaborative poet, etc. Personally, you strike me as predominantly a poet who takes chances with her work and with each new collection. Like a lot of folks, I’m wary of those poetic labels; however, even if we don’t like the labels (i.e. “a _____ poet”), it’s interesting to think about what those labels mean, where they come from, and how they might inform the writer, the work, and the reader. How have you responded to some of these poetic labels in your own work? To what extent do these labels encourage, challenge, and/or torment you as an artist? If you had to, how might you categorize your own work—both currently and where you’re headed? Any advice to other writers (young and old alike) about this sort of thing?
DD: I am teaching a class in the prose poem, and for teaching and scholarship, labels can be really helpful. We’ve studied the miniature, the avant-garde prose poem, the meditative, the neo-surreal, and the deep image. Not any poem really fits into these categories completely—and even the prose poem is slippery. Who can really define it?
I really like your label for me—and I think that I will use it if you don’t mind and say, “I’m a risk-taking poet.” I think it’s fun to be a part of several schools of poetry. Why not? I would advise young writers not to get too hung up on trying to write to fit any school. I would also advise not to think about where their own poetry fits at all. Just read widely and write what you need to write.
MM: So…you’re thinking about prose poems. You’re teaching prose poems. You’re writing prose poems (like “Ouroboros”). Maybe that’s all just a “happy accident” (so to speak), but I’m guessing that it probably isn’t just a coincidence that all these things are coalescing in your life right now. As a fellow writer/teacher, I’m very interested to hear the extent to which your teaching informs your writing (and vice-versa)—both inside and outside the classroom. What sort of things do you strive for as a teacher and a teacher of poetry, in particular? What role do your students play in your teaching and writing life? Who are some of your own poetic “teachers”—past and present—i.e. those folks whom you find instructive in some way to your own intellectual and creative endeavors?
DD: I have to say that I am indeed a bit obsessed at the moment with prose poems, what they can do. The ouroboros is circular, as is (or can be) the prose poem—even though it is a box. I love the fluidity when the poem loses the line-break but retains sonic qualities. The prose poem is a conundrum, of course, and trying to define it has been fun for the class I’m now teaching at Florida International University—a graduate seminar on the prose poem, using theory: Boxing Inside the Box: Women’s Prose Poetry by Holly Iglesias and The American Prose Poem: Poetic Form and the Boundaries of Genre by Michael Delville.
I enjoy discussing and debating different modes of the prose poem—the deep image, the neo-surreal, the meditative, the miniature, and so on. My students have taught me a lot this semester through their presentations. One of the things I ask them to do—as many of them will be teachers themselves one day—is to devise writing exercises, which I do along with the class. So it really is at some point the student becoming the teacher. My own “poetic” teachers are Frank O’Hara, Sharon Olds, Dylan Thomas, and Ai.
MM: That’s very interesting to hear how all these things are coming together. Shifting gears a bit: as you know, it’s our 40th anniversary this year at The Journal. (In celebration, I’m eating birthday cake every day for every meal this year. But that’s just me.) Like all birthdays, this seems like a nice time to glance backwards. From what I can tell, your work first appeared in The Journal back in issue 21.2, published in 1997. What was your writing life like back then? How would you characterize your writing from that time-period? How has your writing evolved? What aspects have changed or remained constant? Is there anything that you would tell your younger, 1990s-era self—any words of encouragement or warning?
DD: Ha! Yes! That first poem in The Journal was called “Bacon”—also a prose poem about the lives of young girls. It is really hard for me to remember how I wrote the poems. I was living in New York, not Florida, and adjunct teaching at various schools. I look back at the poems I wrote then, and though I can’t remember the actual writing of them, I can remember the events surrounding them.
If I could go back and tell my 1990s-era self anything, I would tell her to be patient and not to worry, that she would still be writing poems decades from now, that the poetry wouldn’t go away. I would also say: have that piece of birthday cake.
MM: I love those lessons to your past self! Be patient. Don’t worry. Poetry doesn’t go away. So simple, yet they seem like such incredibly valuable pieces of advice—especially for young writers. But let’s think about the future a little bit and some of those impossibly large and looming questions that keep us up at night. Let’s look into our crystal ball, at our rooster bones, etc. Where do you see poetry moving in the near-and-distant future? What excites and/or worries you about where we might be headed? Where would you like to see us end up, as a community of writers?
DD: I am very excited about poetry at this moment. There is more interest in it now than when I was coming up, and there is a hunger for it, as so much of our culture is prepackaged. The predominant culture is a visual one—to which poetry can adapt and has adapted to quite easily. And I think there are wonderful online communities of poets with many people exposed to poetry at a younger age. The downside is, of course, the flood of simply awful poetry online. My friend said at a conference: there is no poem horrible enough that it can’t find a home on some blog or webzine. I fear that reinforces the stereotype of poetry as self-indulgent and/or Hallmark-ish and could potentially exasperate would-be readers of serious poetry.
But I think readers and writers will ultimately find their way.