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Finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award.
In Blowout, Denise Duhamel asks the same question that Frankie Lyman & the Teenagers asked back in 1954—"Why Do Fools Fall in Love?" Duhamel's poems readily admit that she is a love-struck fool, but also embrace the "crazy wisdom" of the Fool of the Tarot deck and the fool as entertainer or jester. From a kindergarten crush to a failed marriage and beyond, Duhamel explores the nature of romantic love and her own limitations. She also examines love through music, film, and history—Michelle and Barak Obama's inauguration and Cleopatra's ancient sex toy. Duhamel chronicles the perilous cruelties of love gone awry, but also reminds us of the compassion and transcendence in the aftermath. In "Having a Diet Coke with You," she asserts that "love poems are the most difficult poems to write / because each poem contains its opposite its loss / and that no matter how fierce the love of a couple / one of them will leave the other / if not through betrayal / then through death." Yet, in Blowout, Duhamel fiercely and foolishly embraces the poetry of love.

Table of Contents

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  1. Title Page, Copyright
  2. pp. i-iv
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  1. Contents
  2. pp. v-vi
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  1. One
  2. pp. ix-10
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  1. How It Will End
  2. pp. 3-4
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  1. Duper’s Delight
  2. pp. 5-13
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  1. If You Really Want to
  2. pp. 6-7
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  1. Madonna and Me
  2. pp. 8-11
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  1. Mack
  2. pp. 12-13
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  1. Tina and the Bruised Hearts
  2. pp. 14-15
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  1. Takeout, 2008
  2. pp. 16-20
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  1. Ritual
  2. pp. 21-29
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  1. Recession Commandments
  2. pp. 22-24
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  1. Heartburn
  2. pp. 25-26
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  1. An Unmarried Woman
  2. pp. 27-28
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  1. Two
  1. Kindergarten Boyfriend
  2. pp. 31-39
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  1. Fourth Grade Boyfriend
  2. pp. 32-40
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  1. My Shortcut
  2. pp. 33-34
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  1. Lower East Side Boyfriend
  2. pp. 35-36
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  1. The Widow
  2. pp. 37-38
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  1. Loaded
  2. pp. 39-40
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  1. Cleopatra Invented the First Vibrator
  2. pp. 41-49
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  1. My New Chum
  2. pp. 42-43
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  1. A Different Story
  2. pp. 44-45
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  1. You’re Looking at the Love Interest
  2. pp. 46-47
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  1. Or Wherever Your Final Destination May Be
  2. pp. 48-50
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  1. Courtship
  2. pp. 51-59
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  1. Worst Case Scenario
  2. pp. 52-53
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  1. And So
  2. pp. 54-57
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  1. Old Love Poems
  2. pp. 58-59
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  1. Expired
  2. pp. 60-68
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  1. Three
  1. Little Icaruses
  2. pp. 63-71
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  1. Violenza Sessuale
  2. pp. 64-72
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  1. My Strip Club
  2. pp. 65-73
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  1. Victor
  2. pp. 66-68
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  1. You Don’t Get to Tell Me What to Do Ever Again
  2. pp. 69-70
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  1. Self-Portrait in Hydrogen Peroxide
  2. pp. 71-72
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  1. Proposal
  2. pp. 73-74
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  1. Ten Days before We Meet, I Dream You
  2. pp. 75-77
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  1. I Read
  2. pp. 78-86
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  1. Long Distance Relationship
  2. pp. 79-80
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  1. Sleep Seeds
  2. pp. 81-82
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  1. Having a Diet Coke with You
  2. pp. 83-88
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  1. Ode to Your Eyebrows
  2. pp. 89-90
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  1. Acknowledgments
  2. pp. 91-92
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