Biography: Denise Duhamel

Denise Duhamel (1961- ) Looking into her biography and her tendency helped me to understand her works better. Her biography is very short, but her interviews allowed me to know about her experience and her political point of view for that experience, which let me understand her works with more depth. In 1961, Denise Duhamel was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. She received a BFA degree from Emerson College and a MFA degree from Sarah Lawrence College. She is the author of numerous books and chapbooks of poetry, including: Ka-Ching! (University of Pittsburgh, 2009), Two and Two(2005), and Mille et un sentiments(Firewheel Editions, 2005). Her other books currently in print areQueen for a Day: Selected and New Poems (University of Pittsburgh, 2001), The Star-Spangled Banner, winner of the Crab Orchard Poetry Prize (1999); Kinky (1997);Girl Soldier (1996); and How the Sky Fell (1996). Duhamel has also collaborated with Maureen Seaton on three volumes: Little Novels (Pearl Editions, 2002), Oyl (2000), and Exquisite Politics(Tia Chucha Press, 1997). In response to Duhamel's collection Smile!, Edward Field says, "More than any other poet I know, Denise Duhamel, for all the witty, polished surface of her poems, communicates the ache of human existence." A winner of an National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, she has been anthologized widely, including four volumes of The Best American Poetry (2000, 1998, 1994, and 1993). Duhamel teaches creative writing and literature at Florida International University and lives in Hollywood, Florida. (Poet.org) Her first book Smile! includes the poem, “Song for All the Would-Have-Been Princesses” and more. She writes poems that have realism about the issues that women experience every day. In one interview, she stated that she wants to make women the subjects, not the objects of her poems (Duhamel). She shows the readers women’s perspective of our world. Her book carries a sense of feminism, and it is more noticeable in her earlier works such as Smile! She uses irony, humor, and details to women’s prospect in stressfully emotional situations. In another interview, she talks about how she embraced feminism and read a lot of feminist criticism and theory. She describes how she just felt comfortable with the feminist movement during her childhood due to her era: KH: Do you think of yourself a feminist writer or do you eschew any labels? DD: I do consider myself a feminist poet. I've never been uncomfortable with that label. It may have to do with my generation. In seventh grade, I had a teacher who played Helen Reddy's “I Am Woman,” and girls and boys sang along. We felt part of the feminist movement; it was cool to be a feminist. I know that's changed now, and some younger woman, especially, shrug off that label. KH: Why? DD: I think it has to do with media stereotypes, as feminists being seen as ugly and mannish. Feminists have been demonized to a certain extent, and young women may be reacting to that. I’ve heard so many young woman say: I’m not a feminist; I’m a humanist, as though feminists are against humans. Odd(Huston). I agree with her that people think of a negative connotation when they think of feminism. But she considers herself as a feminist poet, writing for women to express what they think and what they go through. This interview shows that she is not an extreme feminist who voices only what they think is right. She is sensitive to women’s certain concerns and wants to look at how we can all cope with it with her work. There are still women who are passively waiting for guys to save from scary things. With many of her poems, Duhamel emphasizes that women have to be active and independent enough to be responsible for their own lives.