Star-Spangled Banner

The Star-Spangled Banner, Denise Duhamel's sixth book of poems, is about falling in love, American-style, with someone who is not American. In the title poem, a small American girl mishears the first line of 'The Star-Spangled Banner' as 'Jose, can you see?', which leads her to imagine a foreign lover of an American woman dressed in a star-spangled gown. The misunderstandings caused by language recur throughout the book: contemplating what 'yes' means in different cultures; watching Nickelodeon's 'Nick at Nite' with a husband who grew up in the Philippines and never saw The Patty Duke Show; misreading another poet's title 'The Difference Between Pepsi and Coke' as 'The Difference Between Pepsi and Pope' and concluding that 'Pepsi is all for premarital sex. / The Pope won't stain your teeth.' Misunderstandings also abound as characters mingle with others from different classes. In 'Cockroaches,' a father-in-law refers to budget-minded American college students backpacking in Europe as cockroaches, not realizing his daughter-in-law was once, not so long ago, such a student/roach herself. With welcome levity and refreshing irreverence, The Star-Spangled Banner addresses issues of ethnicity, class, and gender in America.