Denise Duhamel's "Queen for a Day" – Jules Nyquist
Denise Duhamel
Queen for a Day
University of Pittsburgh Press, 2001
Witty and flirty, yet at the same probing our perspectives of the world, Duhamel packs a
punch in every one of her poems. Smooth on the outside, they nab with issues from the heart;
and she is not afraid to deal with complicated and shameful subjects like bulimia, childlessness,
violence, and sexism. Queen for a Day selects the best of her poems and stacks them into
evolving layers, revealing different facets of her personality.
This collection is a sampling of her previous books along with some new poems and is
divided into several sections, chronologically. “Smile!” the first collection, smirks of
childhood wishes and first loves. In “The Woman with Two Vaginas” she uses Eskimo
mythology to tell wonderfully magical stories. The collections of “Girl Soldier” reads a bit like
prose narratives, and discovers new characters, as she writes from many voices and viewpoint.
“How the Sky Fell” reaches out into the world with issues of social justice, and more tales.
“Kinky” brings to life the Barbie doll world, a unique “plastic-like” reflection of society. “The
Star Spangled Banner” is about Duhamel’s relationship with her husband of a different race,
culture and class.
In the poem “Reminded of My Biological Clock – While Looking at Georgia
O’Keeffe’s Pelvis One” Duhamel’s images provoke strong feelings. The image of x-rays being
held up to the “screen of light – a mini drive-in” collide with society’s expectations of the girl
to have children, when the girl hadn’t thought much about it yet herself, at thirteen. She gives
us that feeling of what it’s like to take on the rite of womanhood with the feeling of being under
observation as a body part: “the doctor said/ admiring my illuminated centerfold skeleton/
before he turned to me, the real – and therefore less interesting – thing.” The girl is feeling
what it is like to be “Queen for a Day” being treated as an object, although favorably, still an
object, a baby-making machine. The reference to the girl’s mother watching talk shows and
the way society treats childless women as selfish keeps repeating that point. Duhamel weaves
a lot of these issues into an interesting narrative, poking fun at society, yet we know it’s all too
real, which is part of the underlying sadness in this poem, and throughout her work.
Bulimia pairs up with sex, an unlikely combination, in “Bulimia,” and Duhamel
explores it well here, comparing kisses to a blow job, to throwing up food: “Without words,/
kisses have barely the slurp-sound of a man entering a woman/ or sliding back out – neither
movement with even the warning of a bark.” The comparison of gagging, choking, “what
happens in her mouth/ past her teeth, where there is no more control, like a waterfall…” is a
brilliant exploration of a shameful subject. The addition of eating the whole wedding cake and
then throwing it out “to dispose of it, not in the trash can downstairs,/ but in a dumpster way on
the other side of town.” further intensifies that feeling of shame, what society expects of us, and
leaves the reader feeling shameful as well.
In “The Woman with Two Vaginas” Duhamel puts her own take on the Intuit tale
“Arnatsiq” by making this story into rhythmical, three line stanzas. She effectively tells us
much in very few words: “He was happy/ until he discovered his wife/ pissing through her
fingers,” and “It’s said he makes his new wife slap his face,/ to feel the warm tingle of her
fingers,’ that he then cries out into her barren palms.” Palms, fingers – these are the only
words that let us know the location of the woman’s “two vaginas.” The man in the poem is
unhappy about his first wife, but Duhamel evokes sympathy for him from the tender last line
(he cries out into her barren palms)
The poem “Kinky” in the series of Barbie-doll exploits, uses humor to put a light on our
own infallible obsessions of sexuality. “They decide to exchange heads,” is a powerful opening
line that touches all of us that are thinking of secret sexual wishes – it puts them in perspective.
We are all human. She uses Barbie dolls to represent the idiosyncrasies of our humanity: “The
two dolls chase each other around the orange Country Camper, unsure of what they’ll do when
they’re within touching distance.” She explores our reluctance as a society to talk about
sexuality, “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.” We can relate to the
endless optimism when relationships go bad, with Doctor Ruth advising: “When all else fails,/
just hold each other, the small sex therapist crooned.” The form of this poem is in two
paragraphs, a collection of lines, not quite a prose poem. This form effectively puts the attention
on the story, and not the form, yet the rhythm of the language keeps it moving.
Throughout the book, Duhamel uses concise language and her poems could be short
stories or miniature fictions. She uses characters to represent the first person narrative, which
makes this book breeze along like a novel, without an overwhelming feeling of being too
confessional, even though she is dealing with very intimate topics. She uses popular culture to
give us a new take on our very human, controversial problems.
The title of the book, “Queen for a Day” could be a reference to the popular radio
program after World War II, where women in the studio audience were interviewed and
competed for appliances. The winner (based on audience applause) would become “Queen for a
Day.” This seems like an early version of some game shows, and Duhamel’s cheeky view of
society in some of these poems seems to make this definition of the title a good fit.
Women want to be more than sex objects, wives and winners of major appliances.
Duhamel breezes through these outcomes with grace and humor in her poetry, tackling the
difficult subjects, and leaving us feeling hopeful, maybe a little bit sad, but never depressed.
We are vulnerable, but also human. This may be best explained by the last image in the poem
“Playa Naturista,” the adventures of her and her husband’s first visit to a nude beach, arriving
early in the morning so as not to be seen by others, hiding in the ocean waves, and eventually
having to come back to shore and face their nakedness along with everyone else: “And as we
face them, all of them,/ our bodies and theirs now/ perfect and elegant. We are dripping/ wet
and full of wet tendrils,/ my husband wearing only/ his seaweed tie and I, a boa of kelp.”
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