Denise Duhamel's poetry collection Blowout, organized into three sections, focuses on themes of love and divorce. The first section hones in on her experience of going through divorce with strong imagery like how the “wind would not let me burn our marriage away…we kept washing up, tiny limp jellyfish at my feet” in her prose poem “Ritual” (21).
Duhamel introduces this first section with the ominously-titled poem, “How Will It End,” in which she parallels the relationship of a lifeguard and his girlfriend to her and her husband’s. At the beginning of this poem, she describes how she and her husband are walking on the boardwalk, “but stop” (3). She continues this pattern of pronoun clause followed by a second clause starting with but. This conjunction emphasizes a lack of smoothness in her relationship, especially with the line “He tries to walk halfway down/to meet her, but she keeps signaling don’t come closer” (3). The physical separation between the lifeguard and his girlfriend demonstrates the emotional separation between the two.
Later in the poem, the speaker and her husband adopt the voices of the observed couple; however, Duhamel further uses pronouns to suggest that they are projecting their problems onto the couple. She does this when she repeats he says, I say after each character’s dialogue. For example, Duhamel quotes the speaker as saying “I say, ‘She doesn’t nitpick!’ and he says, ‘Oh, really?...’ and I say…” (3). By using he says, I say after each line of dialogue, Duhamel blurs the line between the two couples.
She brings us back to the ominous nature of the title and confirms the parallel between the two couples when she ends the poem by stating that “out of the blue the couple is making up…She has her arms around his neck…/He whisks her up into his hut. We look around, but no one is watching us” (4). By having the parallel of the two couples veer off at the end when the one couple makes up emphasizes the idea that the speaker and husband might not (and based on later poems, will not) make up.
In the second section, Duhamel reflects more on her past relationships and why her marriage might have ended. She does this particularly well through a lipstick conceit in her poem “The Widow,” such as when she says she is “careful now/about how often I reapply, knowing I’m only postponing/the eventual concave grave” (38). This section ends with a poem about the death of her father and having to say goodbye to him. As the last poem of the section that focused on her living with her divorce, “Expired” also acts as a goodbye to her ex-husband. To emphasize this goodbye, Duhamel uses her father’s inhaler as a way to procrastinate saying farewell, as is evidenced by her ending statement “I am using my dad’s inhaler until it runs out,/until I absolutely have to say good-bye” (60). This poem fits perfectly at this point of her collection, since it’s the end of her having to live through a “painful separation,” as she puts it, and allows her new beginning in the third section.
In the final section, Duhamel focuses on finding new love and having a new life after her divorce. This is apparent with the metaphor of her first poem, “Little Icaruses,” in which she describes how she has to change a light bulb (63). The title’s allusion to the myth of Icarus who flew too close to the sun emphasizes how her past relationship failed, perhaps due to her own actions; however, by stating that she now feels huge “like God/or science” demonstrates how she’s taking control. She furthers this allusion when she states that as “I screw in/the new sun, I blink,/descend, fold up the stepladder,” which suggests that she is no longer flying too close to the sun like Icarus—she is being cautious and taking control of her life (63). She solidifies her rebirth after her divorce when she ends the poem by “paint[ing] on new lips/and driv[ing] out/into the risky neon mist.”
Duhamel introduces this first section with the ominously-titled poem, “How Will It End,” in which she parallels the relationship of a lifeguard and his girlfriend to her and her husband’s. At the beginning of this poem, she describes how she and her husband are walking on the boardwalk, “but stop” (3). She continues this pattern of pronoun clause followed by a second clause starting with but. This conjunction emphasizes a lack of smoothness in her relationship, especially with the line “He tries to walk halfway down/to meet her, but she keeps signaling don’t come closer” (3). The physical separation between the lifeguard and his girlfriend demonstrates the emotional separation between the two.
Later in the poem, the speaker and her husband adopt the voices of the observed couple; however, Duhamel further uses pronouns to suggest that they are projecting their problems onto the couple. She does this when she repeats he says, I say after each character’s dialogue. For example, Duhamel quotes the speaker as saying “I say, ‘She doesn’t nitpick!’ and he says, ‘Oh, really?...’ and I say…” (3). By using he says, I say after each line of dialogue, Duhamel blurs the line between the two couples.
She brings us back to the ominous nature of the title and confirms the parallel between the two couples when she ends the poem by stating that “out of the blue the couple is making up…She has her arms around his neck…/He whisks her up into his hut. We look around, but no one is watching us” (4). By having the parallel of the two couples veer off at the end when the one couple makes up emphasizes the idea that the speaker and husband might not (and based on later poems, will not) make up.
In the second section, Duhamel reflects more on her past relationships and why her marriage might have ended. She does this particularly well through a lipstick conceit in her poem “The Widow,” such as when she says she is “careful now/about how often I reapply, knowing I’m only postponing/the eventual concave grave” (38). This section ends with a poem about the death of her father and having to say goodbye to him. As the last poem of the section that focused on her living with her divorce, “Expired” also acts as a goodbye to her ex-husband. To emphasize this goodbye, Duhamel uses her father’s inhaler as a way to procrastinate saying farewell, as is evidenced by her ending statement “I am using my dad’s inhaler until it runs out,/until I absolutely have to say good-bye” (60). This poem fits perfectly at this point of her collection, since it’s the end of her having to live through a “painful separation,” as she puts it, and allows her new beginning in the third section.
In the final section, Duhamel focuses on finding new love and having a new life after her divorce. This is apparent with the metaphor of her first poem, “Little Icaruses,” in which she describes how she has to change a light bulb (63). The title’s allusion to the myth of Icarus who flew too close to the sun emphasizes how her past relationship failed, perhaps due to her own actions; however, by stating that she now feels huge “like God/or science” demonstrates how she’s taking control. She furthers this allusion when she states that as “I screw in/the new sun, I blink,/descend, fold up the stepladder,” which suggests that she is no longer flying too close to the sun like Icarus—she is being cautious and taking control of her life (63). She solidifies her rebirth after her divorce when she ends the poem by “paint[ing] on new lips/and driv[ing] out/into the risky neon mist.”