Thoughts on Kinky

This collection of poems would be so fun to make into an actual line of dysfunctionally realistic Barbie dolls. Codependent Barbie comes with an abusive boyfriend and enough makeup to cover a black eye; Neurotic Barbie comes with unnecessary meds and therapy bills; Fat Barbie comes with cake and mascara that won’t run down her cheeks when she cries herself to sleep at night.

The poems in this book never feel gimmicky, even though it would be easy to do with such strict criteria. There are just too many things to do with Barbie, so many ways to warp the image that the idea never becomes stale. Some of the poems take Barbie and actualize her, making the doll conform better to reality and making human flesh into that plastic ideal, no matter what shape or color it is. That is a way to use the Barbie phenomenon to empower and justify women instead of insulting and demeaning them. On the other hand, you have poems that criticize Barbie for being an ideal, since she is so deficient and fake, and using her to discuss feminist and political issues, as in the title poem.

In “Kinky,” Barbie and Ken have a problem that no human couple ever has, mainly being bits unyielding plastic and lacking genitalia all together. And yet, they end up encountering all kinds of relatable dilemmas: wanting to be someone else in bed, having to try crazy, degenerate positions to feel anything at all, and the ever-presence of a lurking gender/sexuality crisis in Ken (in men).

Barbie and Ken are representatives of humans (even if they are unrealistic) and as such serve as an excellent metaphor through which to discuss anything tough, be it gender, race, politics, sex, or sexy and racy gender politics, which is exactly what this collections does.