{"id":5457,"date":"2020-08-21T13:40:40","date_gmt":"2020-08-21T13:40:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/floridareview.cah.ucf.edu\/?post_type=article&p=5457"},"modified":"2020-08-21T13:40:40","modified_gmt":"2020-08-21T13:40:40","slug":"the-voices-of-women","status":"publish","type":"article","link":"https:\/\/cah.ucf.edu\/floridareview\/article\/the-voices-of-women\/","title":{"rendered":"The Voices of Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Unrhymables: Collaborations in Prose<\/em> b<\/strong>y Denise Duhamel and Julie Marie Wade<\/strong><\/p>\n

Noctuary Press, 2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

Paperback, 270 pp., $16.00<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"Cover<\/p>\n

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The Unrhymables: Collaborations in Prose<\/em> brings together the voices of poets Denise Duhamel and Julie Marie Wade whose harmonizing take the reader across a spectrum of topics\u2014marriage, divorce, body image, motherhood, queerness, and womanhood.\u00a0 Duhamel and Wade\u2019s use of the lyric essay format, propelling the reader by associative leaps and thematic recurrence rather than causal narratives, allows them to zoom in on individual words and concepts in order to peel back their associations layer by layer.\u00a0 This elasticity of the conversation between the two women pulls the reader into the conversation with them in a unique way.\u00a0 The authors are writing from different perspectives, Duhamel almost a generation apart in age from Wade, yet their assemblage of experience blends in such a way that it becomes a kind of Everywoman experience. The sisterhood cadence throughout is undeniable and takes us places we might not expect to go.\u00a0 One can imagine sitting on a sofa, late into the night, listening to an intimate conversation with two women as they compare their lives\u2019 experiences and explore the challenges of womanhood from a generational standpoint\u2014this is the intrinsic quality of\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0<\/em>Unrhymables<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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The book is constructed with thirteen thematically linked essays created by micro-memoirs, some of which are sub-titled,\u00a0from both Duhamel and Wade, moving the conversation back and forth in a fluid motion within each essay. The most challenging aspect for the reader, but evidence of a discernible synergy between the two authors, is the fact that their voices are indistinguishable at times\u2014only separated by inferences to their sexual orientation, coming of age experiences, and their childhood\u2014which are filled with societal and cultural references that invariably reveal the particular author. In the essay \u201cPink,\u201d Wade learns about the Nazi downward facing \u201cpink triangle\u201d used to identify homosexual Jews, and Duhamel responds with her experiences in New York City during the AIDS crisis and how the Silence=Death slogan\u2019s logo \u201cturned that pink triangle right-side-up.\u201d\u00a0 Both authors experience the same kind of emotions, only years apart in different contexts.\u00a0 This kind of navigational point occurs frequently throughout the prose and directs the conversations.\u00a0 Should the reader not know some of the more intimate details of the authors\u2019 lives, nor have read other works by Duhamel and Wade, one could conceivably read the text without knowing exactly which one is speaking.<\/p>\n

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However, the hybrid nature of this collection is what takes The Unrhymables<\/em> to new heights. From writing about colors\u2014\u201cWhite,\u201d \u201cPink,\u201d \u201cRed,\u201d \u201cBlue,\u201d \u201cGreen,\u201d and \u201cBlack\u201d\u2014and exploring their personal, historical, and cultural associations, to constructing a Scrabble edition including tandem essays \u201cN1<\/sub>E1<\/sub>A 1<\/sub>R1<\/sub>\u201d\u00a0 <\/sub>and\u00a0 \u201cE1<\/sub> R1<\/sub> A1<\/sub> S1<\/sub>,\u201d \u00a0<\/sub>both of which deal with homosexual acceptance in society, Duhamel and Wade take every opportunity to speak through other poets and writers or mention their work.\u00a0 In fact, the book has no less than 188 references.\u00a0 In an especially powerful and poignant moment, Wade recites Orlando poet Stephen Mills\u2019s poem \u201cThe History of Blood\u201d to weave into the narrative her fears about gay violence, \u201cAnother gay boy got bashed in Miami this week, nearly beaten \/ to death on his way home from a club. The man\u2019s fist \/ smashed the boy\u2019s glittered face, like my glittered face dancing \/ at the gay bar every weekend<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The essay \u201cS1<\/sub>A1<\/sub>L1<\/sub>T1<\/sub>\u201d sings with Wade\u2019s inattentional-blindness, referencing the poet Elizabeth Bishop without explanation to the audience. The reference is subtle to an average reader\u2014probably missed by most\u2014but familiar to poetry readers. Wade points out in the opening lines of the essay, \u201cIf this were chess, I\u2019d choose the bishop and call her Elizabeth. I\u2019d praise her for her smooth slants, her incomparable zigs and zags\u2014never straightforward, never straight back. \u2018Elizabeth is a queen\u2019s name\u2019 someone would say. Only poets would understand.\u201d\u00a0 She follows this with \u201cFor years I read \u2018In the Waiting Room\u2019 in waiting rooms.\u201d Then, a paragraph later, she does it again as she talks about ordering an omelet for breakfast while in Colorado and how she is chastised by her order-taker for expecting the waitress to associate a Denver omelet with a Western<\/em> omelet, \u201cBut when the fluffed eggs appeared, folded sideways and smothered with sharp cheese, it was \u2018A Miracle for Breakfast\u2019\u2014another Bishop poem.\u201d All of this to explain the \u201cextra-textual juxtaposition\u201d of bringing art and life together in a literal fashion. It\u2019s this sideways slide found in Wade\u2019s work that makes her such a joy to read.<\/p>\n

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Nonfiction prose is a departure from Duhamel\u2019s award-winning poetry, but experimentation within her work is not. She is known for playing with pantoums, villanelles, and forms of her own invention such as \u201cporn poetry.\u201d And it\u2019s not the first time she has paid homage to her women forebearers or engaged with feminism in her work. Readers will not find the whimsical poet of \u201cRated R\u201d in the pages of this collection, but they will find Duhamel\u2019s candid approach as she brings to life the times in our history when our mothers and grandmothers faced much tougher times in terms of equality, racism, and sexism. On occasion, the poet does emerge and takes the reader on a delicious ride, as in \u201cKaboom,\u201d the sub-titled essay within \u201cWord Problems,\u201d where she writes about wonky words such as boondoggle<\/em> and conundrum.<\/em> She even thanks Edgar Allen Poe for tintinnabulation.<\/em> Readers will appreciate her simple and subversive delivery as she tackles difficult subjects, bringing wisdom to the page. Her details of the sixties and seventies, where many of her experiences resonate with an older generation of readers, also offer deep insight as her gaze is juxtaposed against Wade\u2019s younger perspective.<\/p>\n

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The final culmination of the dual voices\u2014and the voices even beyond their own two\u2014comes in a glossary at the end of the book akin to Susan Bee and Johanna Drucker\u2019s Fabulas Feminae<\/em>; Duhamel and Wade\u2019s version includes more than a hundred women and girls from the authors\u2019 personal lives as well as public figures, from past and present, literary figures, and fictional characters. It\u2019s really an homage to the wonderful mixture of women\u2014the scholars, the feminists, the divas, the poets, the victims, the comedians, the fashionistas, the heroines, the goddesses, the icons, the red-heads, the singers, the writers, the sirens, the childhood friends, the movie stars, the classmates, and yes, even the grandmas\u2014who inspired or influenced Duhamel and Wade specifically, but all of us really, in some way.<\/p>\n

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The book feels like a fresh approach to collaboration. While the authors each take\u00a0turns\u00a0giving their thoughts on the same subjects, I didn\u2019t find an established order as I read. In other words, I might read two essays written by Duhamel, followed by one of Wade\u2019s. As in a conversation, one person might have more to say than the other, and this is what makes their collaboration so fluid and natural. By placing their voices side by side,\u00a0they allow the reader\u00a0to gain\u00a0insight\u00a0into what has or hasn\u2019t changed\u00a0from one generation to the next. More importantly, I believe the prose embodies\u00a0the voices of all women, past and present,\u00a0as influencers of Duhamel\u00a0and Wade.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

After reading The Unrhymables<\/em>, I have to ponder the idea of the collaboration as a hybrid in addition to the body of work. It\u2019s that sideways slide again: the idea of the offspring from two varieties, composed of different elements, produced through human manipulation for a specific genetic characteristic. The result is a consonant cluster of sorts\u2014Dwade<\/em>, I call it\u2014<\/em>each of their notes produced simultaneously to create a particularly savory tone.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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