(ed: This is Part 2 of Nin Andrews' interview with Denise Duhamel. Read Part 1 here.)
5.
Nin Andrews:
What was the
first record you bought? How has music or
art affected your writing?
Denise Duhamel:
That is such a great question! Embarrassing to answer, but here goes. The first record I ever bought was by the
Partridge Family. My favorite song then
was “I Think I Love You.” My mother had much better taste than I did, though, and I
grew up grooving to Petula Clark.
6.
Nin Andrews:
You teach a lot
of poetry classes. Is there something
you have learned from teaching poetry that you might not have known
before? Has it changed the way you
write? Are there certain anthologies or
books you find particularly useful for teaching?
Denise Duhamel:
I have learned a lot from teaching. In order to explicate poems to my students
and make up assignments, I have to really take poems apart in a way that I
don’t when I’m just reading to enjoy them.
I am actually using The Best American Poetry 2008 in my undergraduate
poetry class this semester with great results.
My students were shocked by Moira Egan’s double sonnet about “69.” It’s good that something can still shock
twenty-somethings. Other anthologies
that are great for teaching are Stand Up Poetry (Charles Harper Webb) and
American Poetry Now: Pitt Poetry Series Anthology (Ed Ochester.) I usually teach anthologies in undergrad
classes and individual books in grad classes.
7.
Nin Andrews:
I love the
structure of Ka-Ching. I love the way you have the chapter titles above an
image of a $100,000 bill. (I've never
seen a $100,000 bill before.) How did
you come up with the structure? And with
the idea of using the images of bills?
Denise Duhamel:
Thanks, Nin! I found
the play money at a thrift store and had to have it. I decided to write the poems directly on the
backs (which were blank.)
http://www.coconutpoetry.org/duhamel2.htm
The designer at University of Pittsburgh Press was able to recreate
what started as a visual poetry project.
8.
Nin Andrews:
In your poem,
$300,000 you write about how women are uncomfortable talking about money. I'm wondering if the topic of money, a theme
in many of the poems in this book, was hard to write about. Did it feel taboo?
Denise Duhamel:
It totally felt (and feels) taboo. I had no idea when I wrote these poems that
our economy was going to nearly collapse.
Ka-Ching! indeed. Yet I knew
there was something about money that people weren’t talking about. I am very interested in what Sharon Olds
calls “saying the unsayable” or rather using poetry to approach subjects that
aren’t necessarily brought up in polite conversation.
9.
Nin Andrews:
I love all your
books. But this new collection,
Ka-Ching, is my absolute favorite. It's
one of those books I will always want to have on my desk. It's at times seriously funny and at times
funnily serious and at other times- just seriously serious. But always it is deeply moving. Was writing it in some way different from
writing your other books? Did it have a
different evolution?
Denise Duhamel:
Thank you, Nin! I
wish you lived with me for my bad low self-esteem days. I didn’t realize that I’d written so much
about money until I sat down with all my poems.
Stephanie Strickland helped me put the book together—she has an
amazingly organized and intuitive mind.
I knew my book was about loss and luck (good and bad), but I hadn’t
really seen the money aspect—even though there were those ten prose poems
written on play money. So I think
perhaps if there was an evolution, it was slow.
But I think I am finally (after decades) getting the hang of the prose
poem.
10.
Nin Andrews:
I was at this
reading once when you were reading your poems from Kinky, esp. the poem in
which Barbie and Ken try to have sex.
This student seated next to me leaned over and said, it's not fair. She can get away with anything. She's so funny and clever, and she just makes
us laugh. Do you think humor is a way to
"get away" with things?
Denise Duhamel:
Stacey Harwood
recently wrote an article in which she quotes George Bernard Shaw. He advises to make people laugh when you tell
the truth or “otherwise they will kill you.”
So yes, I do think humor is a way to “get away” with certain
statements. Laughter is a social activity,
so when people are laughing they are engaged.
11.
Nin Andrews:
Do you have a
writing ritual? Do you write in waves
and then take time off, or is writing just a natural part of your days?
Denise Duhamel:
I used to write twenty minutes a day, no matter what. Now I’m down to 5 minutes a day, no matter
what because it seems as though I have gotten so much busier. I think it’s my working class background that
brings me back to the desk day after day.
Whether I write anything good is not really the point. It just keeps me
sane.
12.
Nin Andrews:
Whenever I give a
reading from a book of my poems, I have a certain poem or 2 I like to open or
close with. I was wondering if you had a poem like that in this book. And if so, which one or ones…
Denise Duhamel:
I really like ending my readings with “Playa Naturista,” a
poem about visiting a nude beach, but really a poem about the vulnerability
(nakedness) of being a writer. Recently,
I’ve been ending with “What Women Know,” which is about a Q&A session after
a reading. It’s fun to read it if there
is going to be a Q&A following. Very
meta and all that.
