“Sometimes I feel my whole life has been one big rejection”
–Marilyn Monroe
***No part of this feature may be used in any shape or form without the specific permission from Susana H. Case and/or Margo Taft Stever.
Once a person becomes a part of public history, she belongs to all of us. Thus, Marilyn Monroe is part of our consciousness, our hearts, and our spirits. Individuals may think Marilyn Monroe played no role in their lives or emotional responses but that could be debated–especially for those who have mental disturbances–something they can now share with Marilyn Monroe, and for those who have endured emotional abuse something Marilyn Monroe endured during her marriage to Joe DiMaggio. For those who are orphans, not wanted or loved, Marilyn Monroe experienced this herself. There are those who felt fatherless just like Marilyn Monroe, and those who were miserable in their own world, just as Marilyn was trapped in her foster homes, where she was sometimes sexually abused.
Almost every negative emotion, every fear, every heartbreak, every disturbance an individual may feel is something Marilyn Monroe felt and endured. She has become a part of who we are–and for those who do not know Marilyn Monroe–it would be beneficial for them to come to know her, and only then will they find someone who walked in their own shoes free of judgment.
And for two poets, colleagues and friends, Susana H. Case and Margo Taft Stever, Marilyn Monroe was known to them. The two read their poems on Marilyn Monroe during a Lit Balm reading series in December, 2019 via Zoom. Susana H. Case made a joke that they should do an anthology on Marilyn Monroe. Margo Taft Stever didn’t see it as a joke but an artistic adventure, which Susana H. Case was more than happy to participate in.
Click on link below to visit Susana H. Case’s website
Click on link below to visit Margo Taft Stever’s website
I WANNA BE LOVED BY YOU: POEMS ON MARILYN MONROE is published by Milk & Cake Press. The anthology’s main goal is two-fold: to give the feminist power to all women that has evaded us for so long and to achieve this power by knowing Marilyn Monroe; thus, the anthology is more than persona or biography but an introduction into a woman we get to know intimately, which is particularly compelling to those who have been marginalized in some way, whether it be by sexual orientation; gender; mental illness; marital abuse; child abuse; sexual harassment; bullying; alcohol and substance abuse; infertility; or the inability to love ourselves in a healthy manner.
Click on below link to order I WANNA BE LOVED BY YOU: POEMS ON MARILYN MONROE from Milk & Cake Press
In “Duffel Pantoum” Denise Duhamel describes Marilyn Monroe as a terrified toddler kidnapped in a duffle bag by her mother. Duhamel then describes her as tormented by the men in her life. But the most striking line of the poem, “We were all cruel to Marilyn in our own ways,” describes us as the perpetrator of some of Marilyn Monroe’s pain. How is this possible since most of us were not even born until after her death? The answer is that she has walked in the shoes of every person who has endured any negativity. As a result, when we are cruel to others, we are cruel to Marilyn.
In the last stanza of the poem “I Don’t Want Marilyn,” George Guida describes himself as a writer and creates a scene which Marilyn recites:
She is standing alone
on a bare stage, reading lines
we can’t commit to memory
In Robert Anthony Gibbons’s poem “the asphalt jungle,” he and Marilyn are twins in the pain they share.
Marilyn, I relate being a ward of the state
and this is our center, it could be
an orphanage or barbiturates, the baroque
glow of death will make us free
In “I never liked you, Marilyn” (translated by Susana H. Case) Davide Rondoni views Marilyn as a little girl in that see-through gown singing “Happy Birthday” to her lover and possibly her killer, President John F. Kennedy.
Click on below link to watch Marilyn Monroe sing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy.
In Grace Cavalieri’s “Marilyn Talks to God (1937),” ten-year-old Marilyn speaks of her two perpetrators: her foster father who abuses her sexually, and God, who will send her to hell for what the foster father has done to her.
In “Newly Discovered Long-Lost Letter from Marilyn to JFK” by Valerie Frost, Marilyn Monroe writes to President Kennedy, describing herself as mentally depressed, unable to be valued since her own mother didn’t want her. She denies herself as a woman because “what’s the use in being able to hug my curves if I can’t be hugged by a child of my own.
In Alen Jenkins’s poem “Marilyn and You,” he depicts Marilyn walking on a high-tension wire that never ends.
In “Prayer for Marilyn Monroe” written by Ernesto Cardenal and translated by Jonathan Cohen, Marilyn Monroe is starving for love, but she only receives drugs. Then in the last two stanzas, he depicts the dead Marilyn Monroe with a phone in her hand, demanding that we as a collective answer that telephone.
In Liz Marlow’s “Marilyn and Clark in the Desert,” Marilyn is the mare struggling to breath with a rope tightening over her throat. She is then attacked by the collective we.
We are the foal pawing at her neck
As she lies – painting,
broken. We are overheated sun
burnt, desperate for her to rise.
In her poem “Marilyn Monroe,” Alex Clifford describes her as claustrophobic, hiding from her true self. In his poem “Across the Line,” Indran Amirthanayagam describes Marilyn as the possible victim of an assassination by mobster Sam Giancana. Patricia Carragon in her poem “Bookworm Goddess” describes Marilyn as a voracious reader tormented in conflict.
In “Memento Mori: Marilyn Monroe” by Jennifer Franklin, Marilyn is a victim of her ex-husband Arthur Miller by his refusing to attend her funeral. In “Marilyn Pursued by Death,” Myra Malkin describes Marilyn as fading away, craving to be loved and needed. Joseph Zaccardi in “The Misfit” writes of Marilyn’s deep seated self-doubts, her loneliness, her regrets, and her depressing thoughts. In his poem “Something’s Got to Give” David Trinidad details Marilyn Monroe’s greatest terror—that of her insomnia which she tried to conquer by taking pills. She is also the slut of the Kennedys and Peter Lawford, passed from one man to the next.
Click on link below to hear Lee Strasberg’s eulogy on Marilyn Monroe and to view her funeral on August 8, 1962 https://search.aol.com/aol/video;_ylt=AwrEzNzyJFdiLx4ALlhjCWVH?q=The+Funeral+of+Marilyn+Monroe&v_t=comsearch&s_it=searchtabs#id=7&vid=dc5876e1d9e1724bda0c2467ae0c8fa3&action=view
The one poem from the collection that epitomizes Marilyn Monroe walking in everyone’s shoes is “The Marilyn Monroe of Santo Domingo,” by Frank Baez and translated by Hoyt Rogers. Here Marilyn Monroe is the 6’4” transvestite, the woman who devours, the woman who is devoured, the woman who is sentimental, the woman who longs for a hug but never receives one, the woman who suffers from endometriosis, who is a victim of domestic violence and ignored by the church. She is then stoned for wanting a sex change, beaten, and she loses herself to herself because she’s already lost to everyone else. She is the one who showers, rinsing off her hair dye, as well as pieces of herself. She is one who takes the yearly AIDS test, sexually promiscuous, getting into fights in Soho and the one arrested by the INS.
Frank Baez includes numerous individuals in his poem “The Marilyn Monroe of Santo Domingo,” but he does not mention those individuals who are not marginalized, not victimized, not poor, and not parentless.
Nonetheless, all of us can identify with Marilyn Monroe, and she with us by experiencing one simple pain that Alessandro Fo states in his poem “Kay Kent” (translated by Susana H Case):
I shared her unhappiness.
Click on the link below to order I Wanna Be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe from Milk & Cake Press
https://milkandcakepress.com/product/i-wanna-be-loved-by-you-poems-on-marilyn-monroe/
Click on the link below to read CARC scripted interview with Susana H. Case and Margo Taft Stever, the editors of I Wanna be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe.
Click on the link below to read the guest blog post by Susana H. Case and Margo Taft Stever, editors of I Wanna be Loved by You: Poems on Marilyn Monroe.