Kinky

Kinky, by Denise Duhamel, is a collection of poems imagining the interiority of Barbie. Barbie gets to travel and work and experiment with sex. She goes into therapy, and twelve step programs, toys with religion... All the while silenced, physically limited, incapacitated by her dollness. The wit of each poem is permeated by sadness of her impotency.

I am considering using some of them in my class on the body.

Here's a sample:

Antichrist Barbie

She could turn her head all the way around
like Linda Blair in The Exorcist.
Her bare high-heeled feet were begging to be nailed,
Jesus-style, to a cross. Mothers saw their daughters' dolls
levitate above pink carrying cases,
the tip upside down, arms straight out to their sides.
Barbie's an angel, cried the little girls who loved her,
who would mortgage their souls to be like her,
who would do anything she asked.