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 &quote,The Star-Spangled Banner&quote, as &quote,Jose, can you see?&quote,, 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 &quote,yes&quote, means in different cultures, watching Nickelodeon's &quote,Nick at Nite&quote, with a husband who grew up in the Philippines and never saw The Patty Duke Show, misreading another poet's title &quote,The Difference Between Pepsi and Coke&quote, as &quote,The Difference Between Pepsi and Pope&quote, and concluding that &quote,Pepsi is all for premarital sex. / The Pope won't stain your teeth.&quote, Misunderstandings also abound as characters mingle with others from different classes. In &quote,Cockroaches,&quote, 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.