“(S)he was a poet on a street corner trying to recite to a crowd pulling at her clothes.” — Arthur Miller
I WANNA BE LOVED BY YOU: Poems on Marilyn Monroe is a new anthology from Milk & Cake Press, edited by Susana H. Case and Margo Taft Stever. You might not know the poetry of either of those editors, but I assure you that it is of a quality matched by many of the contributors to this anthology, the best known of whom I have listed at the end of this post.
As much as I like how well the contents of this themed anthology interanimate the complexity of Monroe’s accomplishments as a cultural worker, I do have a few quibbles, starting with the height and width of the book. The pages are close to 9 inches by 12 inches. It’s cumbersome, with the only advantage being that the painting used on the cover (Willem de Kooning’s Marilyn Monroe; 1954) has plenty of “wall space” to let it glow. In addition, the contents are divided into four sections, which might have benefitted by having subtitles. In addition, I would have appreciated a formal statement by the editors that explained how and why the contents were arranged into these four sections. The introductory essay by Lois Banner is very good in how it adeptly covers a significant number of important events in Monroe’s life.
Despite my reservations, however, this book is one that should go on the shelf right next to Edward Field’s Variety Photoplays. For anyone needing a kickstart to get some writing done, either of these books should immediately loosen up your imagination and make you realize how near at hand inspiration awaits, even if in the case of the Monroe volume, you’ll need both hands to read it.
I WANNA BE LOVED BY YOU
featuring
Ai
Indran Amirthanayagam
Nin Andrews
Rae Armantrout
Ted Berrigan
Gwendolyn Brooks
CA Conrad
Grace Cavalieri
Tina Cane
Ernesto Cardenal
Susana H. Case
Marilyn Chin
Julie Dance
Denise Duhamel
Alexis Rhone Fancher
Cal Freeman
Laurence Goldstein
July Grahn
Dorianne Laux
David Lehman
Suzanne Lummis
Lyn Lifshin
Sebastian Matthews
Lynn McGee
Bill Mohr
Edwin Morgan
Gerald Nicosia
Frank O’Hara
Sharon Olds
Lucia Perillo
Marilyn N. Robertson
Delmore Schwartz
Elaine Sexton
Suzanne Sigafoos
Margo Taft Stever
Mervyn Taylor
David Trinidad
LaWanda Walters
Baron Wormser
C.D. Wright
Carolyne Wright
Sandra Yannone
and, of course, Sylvia Plath and Marilyn Monroe herself.
Sebastian Matthews
Denise Duhamel
David Lehman
Tina Cane
Marilyn Chin
C.D. Wright
Gwendolyn Brooks
Rae Armantrout
Mervyn Taylor
Grace Cavalieri
Lynn McGee
Dorianne Laux
Alexis Rhone Fancher
Delmore Schwartz
Carolyne Wright
Nin Andrews
Ernesto Cardenal
Lucia Perillo
Cal Freeman
Gerald Nicosia
Suzanne Sigafoos
Elaine Sexton
Ted Berrigan
Susana H. Case
Marilyn N. Robertson
Sandra Yannone
Julie Done
Laurence Goldstein
Frank O’Hara
Sharon Olds
July Grahn
Baron Wormser
Ubdrab Amirthanayagam
CAConrad
Ai
LaWanda Walters
Suzanne Lummis
Lyn Lifshin
Edwin Morgan
David Trinidad
and, of course, Sylvia Plath and Marilyn Monroe herself.
About Bill Mohr