The Body Tries Again [Paperback]

Melanie Dusseau (Author)

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: WordTech Communications (December 15, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934999806
• ISBN-13: 978-1934999806
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,758,866 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in Toledo, Ohio, Melanie Dusseau received a BA from Ohio University, an MA from The University of Toledo, and an MFA from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Her poems have appeared in Black Warrior Review, River Styx, and Alaska Quarterly Review, among other journals. This is her first collection of poems.

Praise for "The Body Tries Again:"

"Melanie Dusseau's poems lie down in the As-Seen-On-TV Store of the heart. I love this hilarious, frightening, and instructive book of the post-postlapsarian body as it continues its vertiginous descent and/or ascent to a next life in which dog angels play poker and the hip lunch spot is the Hard Rock Cafe, Purgatory."--Angela Ball

"Dusseau belongs to the tradition of the poète maudit in that she loves to explode every form of spiritual pretense and societal stupor, but the truer character of her poetry comes of her affection: for science, for pop culture, for holding on to her rust belt roots, and to her individuality as a woman of her time. Think of her setting as a bowling alley, and her muse as Darwin. Dusseau is steel-tough, book-smart, and street-ready, and everywhere in The Body Tries Again, she carries a sense of uncompromising delight."--Rodney Jones

"Melanie Dusseau's The Body Tries Again is a tour de female force, a cunningly confrontational and irresistibly comic approach to the complications of gender. Borrowing from the language of pop culture, self-help, religion, and science, Melanie Dusseau generates images that sizzle with wit, intelligence, and sass. Inventive and beautifully crafted, the poems in the The Body Tries Again are enchantingly raucous."--Denise Duhamel

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Engaging debut by poet, January 25, 2010

By 

Vicki Kroll - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Body Tries Again (Paperback)

Melanie Dusseau's debut, "The Body Tries Again," is a fun read. Her poems burst with wit as she slings pop culture references while writing about topics that range from love to the afterlife. Who doesn't like a poet who uses the word "craptastic," chronicles dying her dad's beard, and muses about undressing in front of the dog? If that's not enough, Dusseau adds cerebral dashes of Darwin, Marx and Greek mythology. The 49 works in this 80-page collection leave the reader wanting more -- a lot more.

4.0 out of 5 stars Fun Read for Poets and non-poets. Great for teaching new poets about narrative and tone., December 2, 2010

By 

Brett Griffiths (Ann Arbor, MI United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Body Tries Again (Paperback)

Dusseau's poems play wittily with popular culture and poke an occasional ironic stick in the eye of the intelligentsia. In this book Darwin and the dog are both scientists and the perfection of being human lies outside the scientist's grasp and a girl's first dream of love. Dusseau dabbles in anthropological linguistics and questions what it means to be raised in the rust-belted Midwest where people say "aaaigggs" not eggs and "nasal it up a notch," where "Bad boy" Hermes is the tragic foll to Persephone's Hollywood tale.

The only critique I offer is that I think the poems could have gone longer, taken on more gravitas and dawdled a bit more with the lyric.

Writing Instructors: This is a first book by new poet Dusseau, and it will appeal to poets and non-poetrs alike. A great book for teaching introductory courses in poetry as Dusseau demonstrates how to make the personal general and vice versa. These poems would serve as incredible models for getting students out of "it really happened" and into writing narratives and observations that take on the myths of our times.

Besides all of that? It's a fun read!