Rom Com

By Dina Del Bucchia and Daniel Zomparelli

At precisely the cultural moment you were hoping for, a dream team of smart, sexy, brunette, West Coast poets of Italian descent has passionately co-authored an intelligent collection of poetry that both celebrates and capsizes the romantic comedy.

From the origin of the genre (It Happened One Night) to its contemporary expressions (Love Actually), the poems in Rom Com trace the attempt to deconstruct as well as engage in dialogue with romantic comedy films and the pop culture, celebrities, and tropes that have come to be associated with them. These irreverent, playful, weird, and comedic poems come in a variety of forms, fully engaging in pop culture, without a judgmental tone. They see your frumpy expectations and raise you issues of sexuality, consent, sexism, homophobia, race, and class. They explore the highs and lows of romantic relationships and the expectations and realities of love, tackling real emotional worlds through the lens of film.

Two cool people wrote it. Dina Del Bucchia, the fashionable and voluptuous, is a woman on the go, brazenly hosting literary events and tweeting about otters and award shows. Daniel Zomparelli, the handsome and dashing, is a young, gay man-about-Vancouver who somehow also quietly edits (in chief) a semi-annual poetry journal. (Ship them all you want, fools.)

How to tell if you are compatible with this book: Are you equally versed in literature and pop culture? Are you a film-savvy fan of contemporary poetry? Are you an academic with interest in literature and cultural studies? Are you in general a cool, sad person? This book might just be the sassy best friend you’ve wanted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Talonbooks
• Release date: Dec 15, 2015
• ISBN: 9780889229983

Dina Del Bucchia

Dina Del Bucchia is the author of the short-story collection Don’t Tell Me What to Do and of three collections of poetry: Coping with Emotions and Otters, Blind Items, and Rom Com, the latter written with Daniel Zomparelli. She is an editor of Poetry Is Dead magazine, the artistic director of the Real Vancouver Writers’ Series, and a co-host of the podcast Can’t Lit with Jen Sookfong Lee. An otter and dress enthusiast, she lives on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) First Nations (Vancouver, British Columbia).

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To print your own copies of the Dina and Daniel paper dolls, visit our website!

Big mistake. Big. Huge!

–Pretty Woman

Rom Com

Contents

SHE WALKED OFF THE STREET INTO HIS LIFE AND STOLE HIS HEART

Meet Cute

It Happened One Night

Provincial Gym Monkeys and/or All the Places to Meet the Love of Your Life

Your Apartment

Gender Equation

Bobs and Weaves

You Need Abs to Be in Love

Jennifer Aniston

Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lawrence

Easy A

50 First Kates

Eat, Pray, Love

You’re Supposed to Be Engaged

Jokes

Punchline

The Funny Thing Is

Matthew McConaughey’s Abs

Matthew McConaughey’s Arms

Porn Parodies: Dick Edition

Porn Parodies: Vagina Edition

QUIZ: Ever Wondered If You Might Be the City as a Character in a Romantic Comedy?

Slow Motion

Adam Sandler: A Love Story

What’s Not to Love, Adam Sandler?

(500) Dicks of Summer

Dicks Actually

A Series of Romantic Comedies That Could Never Be Made

Valentine’s Day

What’s Your Number?

She’s All That

50 First Dates

Line, Please

IT'S FUNNY WHAT LOVE CAN MAKE YOU DO

Unrequited Love

Unrequited Love 2: Even More Unrequited

Morning Wood: The 40-Year-Old Virgin

Some Like It Hot

Romantic Opposites-Attract Comedies: Your preferences created this row.

QUIZ: Screwball Mix ’N’ Match

Sex Scene

Sex Scene (revision)

Your Boobs

Asshole

How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, or Asshole

People Are Assholes!

You Did That on Your Own

Definitely, Maybe

In a Movie about Weddings No One Wants to Attend

In a Movie about Weddings No One Wants to Attend 2: Even Less Interested

So I Married a Poet

Funny Face

But Hocus Pocus Isn’t Even a Rom Com?

You Are the Devil, I (Should) Have Said

Montage

Romantic Comedies for Young Girls:

Hollow Ship to Hell

The Rose

YOU CAN’T ALWAYS RUN FROM YOUR PAST

Emotionally Broken

Because You Watched 27 Dresses

Overboard

He’s Just Not That into You

I Am So Lonely, I Am So Fucking Lonely, lol, SEND, Obvious Child

He Grasps at Emotion, or The Proposal

You’re Supposed to Be Engaged

Puff Puff, Give. Puff Puff, Give

Acting

The Acting Was Fantastic

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

You Fell for the Wrong Girl

But Maybe He Wasn’t Really a Person

On Every Television Channel

This Is Considered Adorable

Titanic

The Stories You Build

Nora Ephron

QUIZ: Ever Wondered If You Might Be the Best Friend of a Romantic Lead?

Sonnets for Supporting Roles:

Rita, Bridesmaids

Dionne, Clueless

Muriel, It Could Happen to You

George, My Best Friend's Wedding

Kit, Pretty Woman

Christmas

Love Actually

When Harry Met Sally

Five-Star Rating

The Movie Will Be a Disappointment

What’s Happening Onscreen Isn’t Relatable

Harold and Maude

New Year’s Eve

Soundtrack

Everything Is Bad Choices that Make Me Feel Good

Credits

Blooper Reel

About the Authors

SHE WALKED OFF THE STREET INTO HIS LIFE AND STOLE HIS HEART

Meet Cute

Spill sticky fruit juice on someone’s important papers.

Wear a torn tracksuit, jog at the corner where luxury cars drive daily.

Let your dog run into the street and hope for a beautiful hero instead of blood.

Open your big, loud mouth and offend.

Order an egg cream at a diner; hide your disgust as you taste the creamy soda.

Pretend to be a golf enthusiast and pitch a nine iron into the rough.

Reach for the Fig Newtons at your local, organic, free-range grocery.

Get trapped in the subway station train for several hours and talk loudly on your phone to important people about how important you are.

Trip and fall near someone’s butt.

Meet quickly.

It Happened One Night

It was a hate-until-you-love,

opposites-attract, sexual-tension thing.

It was a nice touch: banter

fresh as bobs and finger waves in 1934.

It sent a shiver. She was set up

by men who claimed to love her.

It happened to pave a small piece of road

for other women to click-clack down.

It’s not so different now, expectations,

how love should blossom into white gowns.

It won all top five Oscars that year,

the first to claim that fame.

It wouldn’t happen like that now,

get serious.

Provincial Gym Monkeys and/or

All the Places to Meet the Love of Your Life

The gym.

A coffee shop.

A Hawaiian vacation.

Through work.

In the red-light district.

While being arrested.

The Internet.

The