I’m working on getting the blurbs for Branding Girls. I just received the first one from Jehanne Dubrow, an amazing poet who also attended PhD school at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. I was lucky enough to speak to her on the phone when I was considering applying to the program. By the time I arrived at UNL, she was finished with her coursework and comprehensive exams and well on her way to graduation. However, we were both lucky enough to have lunch with the late Lucille Clifton who was the visiting poet at UNL in March 2007. I have read all of Jehanne’s three books (Stateside, From the Fever-World, The Hardship Post), and one chapbook (The Promised Bride). She is prolific and talented, to say the least. Don’t believe me? Check out Lauren Winner’s review of Stateside on Books and Culture.

Here’s Jehanne‘s blurb:

“Brand: as in a mark. Branded: as in burned on an animal, a criminal, someone enslaved. Branding: as in a trademarking, a commodification. In Laura Madeline Wiseman’s terrifying Branding Girls, the poet demonstrates that our femininity is defined by advertising, name brands, and material desires. From the figure of the Japanese “elevator girls,” we learn that contemporary women are in danger of becoming a series of negations: ‘Not geisha. Not madams… / Not call girls / or masseuses. Not school girls / in pleated skirts.’ I love this collection for the same reasons I love TV’s “Mad Men”: its elegance, its dark humor, and its pain.”

Wow. Thank you, Jehanne.