Customer Reviews

The Body Tries Again

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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.

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!