Reading Response

Upon first glance of reading BUDDHIST BARBIE by Denise Duhamel, I felt that I didn’t really understand what she was talking about. After rereading the poem and discussing it with a collection of my peers, I feel that I reached an understanding of the point that Denise is trying to get across not with just BUDDHIST BARBIE, but with the compilation of her poems in this section. What Denise is saying is that in the fifth century BC Siddhartha’s teachings were easier to understand for the people who were around him, but Barbie comes from capitalism and is everything that everyone wants her to be. She wants to understand what others are understanding, but with the way society has taught her to be, this task is very arduous for her. I enjoy the way that each one of Denise’s poems helps the reader understand the next poem. Her style of writing is thought provoking in a sense that she takes something such as a Barbie, which is almost universally known, and sheds it in a different light. She portrays Barbie as something that many people if they thought about it would see as well. Denise also portrays Barbie as something that is not just one dimensional. Barbie is caught up in what she is wanted to be and she’s trying to break free from those constraints.