Academic Outrage!

First, some general things. I got two papers back, one yesterday, one today, got As on both of them. No big deal. O'Connor totally tore my Joyce paper apart, sentence structure-wise, and apparently I use too many commas for her taste, and I am an "irresponsible writer". Whatever the hell that means. Still, I got an A. And Celtic Myth...easy class, easy paper, no worries.

On to the real reason for this post. *Warning: The following poem may contain some disturbing images for my more sensitive readers. If reading poetry about Barbie dolls and things of a sexual nature will bother you, exit the post now. But I urge you to open your mind and continue reading.*

This following piece was shown to me by Austin several months ago, and since then, I've hunted out many things Denise Duhamel has written, long poems, prose poems, and literary journal pieces. She's brilliant. So read.

Kinky

They decide to exchange heads.
Barbie squeezes the small opening under her chin
over Ken's bulging neck socket. His wide jaw line jostles
atop his girlfriend's body, loosely,
like one of those novelty dogs
destined to gaze from the back windows of cars.
The two dolls chase each other around the orange Country Camper
unsure what they'll do when they're within touching distance.
Ken wants to feel Barbie's toes between his lips,
take off one of her legs and force his whole arm inside her.
With only the vaguest suggestion of genitals,
all the alluring qualities they possess as fashion dolls,
up until now, have done neither of them much good.
But suddenly Barbie is excited looking at her own body
under the weight of Ken's face. He is part circus freak,
part thwarted hermaphrodite. And she is imagining
she is somebody else-- maybe somebody middle class and ordinary,
maybe another teenage model being caught in a scandal.

The night had begun with Barbie getting angry
at finding Ken's blow up doll, folded and stuffed
under the couch. He was defensive and ashamed, especially
about not having the breath to inflate her. But after a round
of pretend-tears, Barbie and Ken vowed to try
to make their relationship work. With their good memories
as sustaining as good food, they listened to late-night radio
talk shows, one featuring Doctor Ruth. When all else fails,
just hold each other, the small sex therapist crooned.
Barbie and Ken, on cue, groped in the dark,
their interchangeable skin glowing, the color of Band-Aids.
Then, they let themselves go-- Soon Barbie was begging Ken
to try on her spandex miniskirt. She showed him how
to pivot as though he was on a runway. Ken begged
to tie Barbie onto his yellow surfboard and spin her
on the kitchen table until she grew dizzy. Anything,
anything, they both said to the other's requests,
their mirrored desires bubbling from the most unlikely places.

[Poem by Denise Duhamel, yoinked from americanpoems.com, with one minor spelling error corrected by me]

This. Is. Good. It's fun, and it's relevant, and it's political and social, and people can relate to it. Basically, this is everything that poetry should be. It's accessible. And, aside from all that, it's well written, and her voice is sharp, witty, fresh. She brings so much pop culture into this piece, but it doesn't dumb the poem down...if anything, it takes the readers who can latch on to things like Barbie and Dr. Ruth and brings them into poetry. Plus, that opening line is just amazing. Read it again. This poem is out there, and unpretentious and demanding of attention, and deserves to be read again and again. And to get inside the head of a Barbie doll...the woman's amazing.

But how I got onto this. I was thinking about this poem this morning, and I wanted to read it before I headed off to class, so I googled it, and found a link, and after I read the poem, I noticed there was a comment section. So I opened it up and the first thing I see is "That isn't poetry. Poetry has rules."

People like that are why poetry is remaining an inaccessible art form. Poets think they're so high and mighty and that they belong to this little secret society with symbols and words that no one else understands, and that the denser a piece is, the harder it is to understand, the better it must be. I hate people like that. Plus, those people usually write terrible poetry. If you ever hear anyone say:

Oh, poetry is easy.
Poetry comes natrually to me.
That isn't a poem because is doesn't do....(whatever)
Yeah, the only good poetry is rhyming poetry.

Just go ahead and smack them in the face. Really really hard. And tell them it was from me. Or better yet, read this poem to them. So I plead with you all...print this poem off and tack it up somewhere in your room or on the fridge or on a message board at work. Post it in your livejournal or blog. Or just read it to yourself, and think about it.

Current Mood: Righteous indignation :)