Scald

“So many times I wanted/ to be outrageously political/ but then lost my nerve,” writes Duhamel (Blowout) in a book that at times toes the line of a feminist manifesto. She frequently employs the pantoum, and the form’s pattern of repeating lines has an obsessive quality that makes it appropriate for mulling over grand concepts: evolution, reproduction, the safety of a body. But modern minutiae also permeate these poems: the word “amazon” brings the website to mind before any of its cognates, and an autocorrected email signature conjures an alternate life: “In my new identity, I’m ten years younger,/ a lot skinnier, but I haven’t read much.” The poem “Rated R” is divided into sections named for film ratings: for example, paying your mortgage is “Restricted for Adult Activity,” the 2010 BP oil spill is “Restricted for Crude Situations,” and a bankrupt Trump Tower is “Restricted for Suggestive Material.” The book’s three sections bear the names of radical feminists (Firestone, Dworkin, and Daly), and the questions Duhamel asks often have a second-wave bent: “Why would women/ want to shoot anybody else,/ as they are so often victims of violence/ themselves?” Duhamel’s robust sense of humor and formal adventurousness make the text enjoyable even if some questions remain unanswerable. (Feb.)