Denise Duhamel is like a Tequila Sunrise. By the time you figure out it's not fruit juice, it's too late. These poems take an absolutely unsetimental, often outrageous, sometimes poignant look at the cultural construct called "American Girl," and nothing that goes into them comes out unscathed.

                                    -Brooke Bergan

There is no truly "straight" word for Duhamel--she honors the queer, the wayward, the untoward. Moreover, she celebrates relationships--identity found not fixed in oneself, but forged and complicated with others...

                                     -Page Delano

SHAME

THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF BEING AN AMERICAN WOMAN

THE AMOROUS HUSBAND AND THE PREMENSTRUAL WIFE

YOU

GIRL SOLDIER

i think i'm ready to go back to the main page