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New Selected Poems 1984-2004
This volume contains poems chosen by Carol Ann Duffy from her first six acclaimed collections, from Standing Female Nude (1985) to Feminine Gospels (2002), and a handful of 'other poems' collected her for the first time. It shows a writer who hit the ground running, emerging into the world with an utterly distinctive voice, becoming one of the foremost poets of any generation. Her quicksilver intelligence shines throughout these poems and along with her gift for language for turning it inside out, for ringing its riches from the everyday and the far away allows her to move effortlessly from ribald mimicry to tense lyricism, from the mind of a giggling schoolgirl to that of a psychopath. Endlessly varied and wonderfully inventive, this volume is the perfect introduction for new readers, the essential selection for students, and a glorious sum of parts for old acquaintances.
288 pages, Paperback
First published October 15, 2004
31 people are currently reading
276 people want to read
About the author
Carol Ann Duffy
174 books737 followersDame Carol Ann Duffy, DBE, FRSL is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain's Poet Laureate in May 2009.
She is the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly LGBT person to hold this position.
Her collections include Standing Female Nude (1985), winner of a Scottish Arts Council Award; Selling Manhattan (1987), which won a Somerset Maugham Award; Mean Time (1993), which won the Whitbread Poetry Award; and Rapture (2005), winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize.
Her poems address issues such as oppression, gender, and violence, in an accessible language that has made them popular in schools.
She is the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly LGBT person to hold this position.
Her collections include Standing Female Nude (1985), winner of a Scottish Arts Council Award; Selling Manhattan (1987), which won a Somerset Maugham Award; Mean Time (1993), which won the Whitbread Poetry Award; and Rapture (2005), winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize.
Her poems address issues such as oppression, gender, and violence, in an accessible language that has made them popular in schools.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 31 reviews
February 28, 2015
One of the first poems I remember seeing as part of the Poems on the Underground project was Carol Ann Duffy's ‘Prayer’, which I first read westbound somewhere on the Central Line in my early twenties and thought it was the most beautiful thing imaginable:
Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
utters itself. So, a woman will lift
her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.
Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.
Pray for us now. Grade One piano scales
console the lodger looking out across
a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
a child's name as though they named their loss.
Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer –
Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.
It would probably be a romantic lie to say that I missed my stop, but certainly the poem left a huge impression on me; I don't think it's been out of my memory since – and perhaps it's not easy to understand why, for those who did not grow up in Britain in a house where the shipping news on Radio Four was a constant, coded background companion, mysterious, reverential.
Duffy has always been a popular poet in the UK, inasmuch as any poet can be said to be popular. Her style – as evidenced above – is built on simple, everyday language used in carefully spring-loaded ways. (She has said more than once that she dislikes ‘Seamus Heaney words’, such as plash.) I find her a bit more uneven than perhaps some of her fans do, but when she succeeds she does so in a spectacular way, at least to my tastes.
This collection dates to five years before she was named Poet Laureate in 2009. It contains famous anthologised pieces like the sultry, lesbo-erotic ‘Warming her Pearls’ or the ingenuous ‘Valentine’ (‘Not a red rose or a satin heart. I give you an onion’); it also contains more notorious pieces like ‘Education for Leisure’, which was banned from the GCSEs because it supposedly glorified knife crime.
Some of her later books were based around themes; there is an especially generous selection here from the excellent The World's Wife (1999), which inhabits the viewpoint of women associated with famous men in history – Mrs Aesop, Frau Freud, Queen Kong, etc. Many of these are a way for her to make some astringent comments on male-centric views of history, although others are rather sweet:
Anne Hathaway
The bed we loved in was a spinning world
of forests, castles, torchlight, cliff-tops, seas
where he would dive for pearls. My lover's words
were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses
on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme
to his, now echo, assonance; his touch
a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.
Some nights I dreamed he'd written me, the bed
a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance
and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.
In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,
dribbling their prose. My living laughing love –
I hold him in the casket of my widow's head
as he held me upon that next best bed.
I'm quoting my favourites here, not the most representative ones by any means. There is something about the fourteen lines of a sonnet that slots perfectly into the way I think, but actually Duffy writes in all kinds of forms. Her verse is, though, rarely entirely formless and free.
The latest book represented in here is 2002's Feminine Gospels, which includes one of her longest and best, a poem called ‘The Laughter of Stafford Girls' High’. If you have three-quarters of an hour to kill you can listen to Joanna Lumley reading the adapted-for-radio version here, and I strongly recommend it.
She was the first Scottish Poet Laureate, the first female Laureate and the first openly gay Laureate – but lining up the various categories seems irritating because her work is expansively all-inclusive. She's one of those rare poets that have literary cachet and popular appeal all in one – ‘the reason and rhyme’, as she says somewhere, prowling ‘at the edge of the limelight’.
March 25, 2022
3 stars
This is the first full poetry collection that I have read. I must say I was surprised in many occasions. As in any work that is a collection of something there are clear standouts and pieces that don't work as well. Nonetheless, this collection of Carol Ann Duffy poetry was very enjoyable.
This is a weird assortment of poetry where there isn't one clear theme connecting everything which is something that I would've expected out of a poetry collection. Instead we get excerpts from many previously published collections that existed previously. The World's Wife is perhaps the most well-known collection here however there are some other poems that I think are beautiful and are worth reading:
There were two poems that I think are very current and talk a lot about the desensitisation that occurs during times of great strife and war, namely War Photographer and Far Be It. The former follows the titular war photographer as he ponders his next batch of work. I thought it was impactful how Duffy juxtaposed the terrifying immediacy of war and the nonchalant attitude of the people not directly affected by it in the lines "A hundred agonies in black and white / from which his editor will pick out five or six / for Sunday supplement". The latter poem works with the helplessness that comes from being a bystander and how ignorance can both help these bystanders deal with the harsh realities of the outer world but how it can also lead to them feeling ashamed for not helping more. It is quaint and to the point, but the provoking imagery of the dying boy and the speaker raging in front of the TV set is so current and so vivid that this poem immediately stood out in my head.
There are some other poems that deal with other current issues, for example vegetarianism. A Healthy Meal is one of the most gruesome descriptions of a dinner that I have ever read. Duffy zooms in on various characters eating different foods that are derived from animals. She makes the choice to bring attention to the fact that these people are eating what ones were living creatures (for example, instead of talking about "beef" she refers to the meet at self as "cow") and does it in such a way that disgusts the reader.
Her immigration poems I thought were also particularly of notes especially since she takes his little ideas that immigrants or children of immigrants may have and turns them into something palatable but also comprehensive to people who aren't directly immigrants. The poems of note for me were Foreign and Originally. The first explores the tragedy of how once you move somewhere new the place starts becoming more familiar to you even though you'll always are 'foreign' to it; simultaneously, the longer you stay away from where are you came from that place will start to become more foreign to you. Thus, you end up feeling foreign no matter where you are. The second is much more up to interpretation however there was one line that really stood out to me about accents and losing them in order to assimilate to the new environment: "I remember my tongue / shedding its skin like a snake, my voice / in the classroom sounding just like the rest.".
Lastly, there is a series of poems about femininity that I thought Duffy executed very very well. Correspondents reminded me of Ivy by Taylor Swift an artist that I adore. Lizzie, Six I interpreted to be about the loss of innocence or at least how the world stopped caring about the emotions of girls as they get older. There is the sensual Steam and melancholic Standing Female Nude. Of course there were also the murderously erotic Delilah and Salome. And one of the final poems in this collection was Beautiful. It chronicled, without naming, many women from history or mythology that were considered beautiful and then villainized or objectified: how their beauty ultimately destroyed them because of how society, especially men, felt entitled to them.
However for every single one of those great poems, that I mentioned previously, there were many that didn't live up to the same standards or ones that I just didn't understand or connect with as much. That's fine and that is to be expected hence I am giving this three stars since I liked it there is some standouts but there were also many poems that I didn't find as much value in (for myself). Overall I would recommend this to fans of modern poetry. In addition I'd recommend this in bite-size chunks for people interested in some of the subject matters that I talked about in this review. Especially to check out the poems that I listed because I really think those were fantastic.
This is the first full poetry collection that I have read. I must say I was surprised in many occasions. As in any work that is a collection of something there are clear standouts and pieces that don't work as well. Nonetheless, this collection of Carol Ann Duffy poetry was very enjoyable.
This is a weird assortment of poetry where there isn't one clear theme connecting everything which is something that I would've expected out of a poetry collection. Instead we get excerpts from many previously published collections that existed previously. The World's Wife is perhaps the most well-known collection here however there are some other poems that I think are beautiful and are worth reading:
There were two poems that I think are very current and talk a lot about the desensitisation that occurs during times of great strife and war, namely War Photographer and Far Be It. The former follows the titular war photographer as he ponders his next batch of work. I thought it was impactful how Duffy juxtaposed the terrifying immediacy of war and the nonchalant attitude of the people not directly affected by it in the lines "A hundred agonies in black and white / from which his editor will pick out five or six / for Sunday supplement". The latter poem works with the helplessness that comes from being a bystander and how ignorance can both help these bystanders deal with the harsh realities of the outer world but how it can also lead to them feeling ashamed for not helping more. It is quaint and to the point, but the provoking imagery of the dying boy and the speaker raging in front of the TV set is so current and so vivid that this poem immediately stood out in my head.
There are some other poems that deal with other current issues, for example vegetarianism. A Healthy Meal is one of the most gruesome descriptions of a dinner that I have ever read. Duffy zooms in on various characters eating different foods that are derived from animals. She makes the choice to bring attention to the fact that these people are eating what ones were living creatures (for example, instead of talking about "beef" she refers to the meet at self as "cow") and does it in such a way that disgusts the reader.
Her immigration poems I thought were also particularly of notes especially since she takes his little ideas that immigrants or children of immigrants may have and turns them into something palatable but also comprehensive to people who aren't directly immigrants. The poems of note for me were Foreign and Originally. The first explores the tragedy of how once you move somewhere new the place starts becoming more familiar to you even though you'll always are 'foreign' to it; simultaneously, the longer you stay away from where are you came from that place will start to become more foreign to you. Thus, you end up feeling foreign no matter where you are. The second is much more up to interpretation however there was one line that really stood out to me about accents and losing them in order to assimilate to the new environment: "I remember my tongue / shedding its skin like a snake, my voice / in the classroom sounding just like the rest.".
Lastly, there is a series of poems about femininity that I thought Duffy executed very very well. Correspondents reminded me of Ivy by Taylor Swift an artist that I adore. Lizzie, Six I interpreted to be about the loss of innocence or at least how the world stopped caring about the emotions of girls as they get older. There is the sensual Steam and melancholic Standing Female Nude. Of course there were also the murderously erotic Delilah and Salome. And one of the final poems in this collection was Beautiful. It chronicled, without naming, many women from history or mythology that were considered beautiful and then villainized or objectified: how their beauty ultimately destroyed them because of how society, especially men, felt entitled to them.
However for every single one of those great poems, that I mentioned previously, there were many that didn't live up to the same standards or ones that I just didn't understand or connect with as much. That's fine and that is to be expected hence I am giving this three stars since I liked it there is some standouts but there were also many poems that I didn't find as much value in (for myself). Overall I would recommend this to fans of modern poetry. In addition I'd recommend this in bite-size chunks for people interested in some of the subject matters that I talked about in this review. Especially to check out the poems that I listed because I really think those were fantastic.
January 13, 2021
My 2015 post on social media: "I am close to being overruled on my ‘no hospital’ mandate and Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry books were such a disappointment."
I’ve still not read The World’s Wife or most of the rest I’d bought due to my initial disappointment but I’d been having a quiet love affair with Carol Ann Duffy’s audiobooks because of her accent, it had nicely improved my enjoyment of her poetry. I’d even used Kobo to get my hands on some of her then UK-only ones.
While listening to her New Selected Poems: 1984-2004 today I was disgruntled to learn she’d included a transphobic poem called “From Mrs Tiresias” and that 2004/2016 Carol Ann Duffy had not disavowed this poem from her 1999 collection The World’s Wife or at least not enough to keep from including/recording it despite this book/audiobook just being a selection of her oeuvre. Oh, and apparently I’d had a bad attention span on the day I’d listened to the audiobook The World’s Wife and had entirely missed hearing this poem which is not atypical but eh.
Which is to say I was right to be disappointed in 2015.
I’ve still not read The World’s Wife or most of the rest I’d bought due to my initial disappointment but I’d been having a quiet love affair with Carol Ann Duffy’s audiobooks because of her accent, it had nicely improved my enjoyment of her poetry. I’d even used Kobo to get my hands on some of her then UK-only ones.
While listening to her New Selected Poems: 1984-2004 today I was disgruntled to learn she’d included a transphobic poem called “From Mrs Tiresias” and that 2004/2016 Carol Ann Duffy had not disavowed this poem from her 1999 collection The World’s Wife or at least not enough to keep from including/recording it despite this book/audiobook just being a selection of her oeuvre. Oh, and apparently I’d had a bad attention span on the day I’d listened to the audiobook The World’s Wife and had entirely missed hearing this poem which is not atypical but eh.
Which is to say I was right to be disappointed in 2015.
January 3, 2023
it’s a mixed bag of some really good and beautiful poems with some that are taxing to read with no real purpose
March 4, 2024
No one:
No one at all:
Someone: So what do you like about Duffy poems
Me: A ONE A TWO A ONE TWO THREE FOUR -- BOOGIE WOOGIE CHOU CHOU CHA CHA CHATTA
4 stars
No one at all:
Someone: So what do you like about Duffy poems
Me: A ONE A TWO A ONE TWO THREE FOUR -- BOOGIE WOOGIE CHOU CHOU CHA CHA CHATTA
4 stars
Read
April 8, 2011New Selected Poems: 1984-2004 by Carol Ann Duffy is a compilation of the best of her poetry of twenty years of published works, Standing Female Nude (1985) to Feminine Gospels (2002). I had fallen in love with Duffy's poetry after being introduced to her by a friend living in the UK where she is quite popular, who lent me another selected works of hers, Love Poems. In Canada the only collection I was able to locate was Standing Female Nude, so I decided to purchase New Selected Poems online to get a taste of the rest of her writing.
Like most selected works, the collection appears in chronological order so the first poems I read were ones excerpted from Standing Female Nude (1985). Rereading them I shared the same feelings I had initially, that although some showed potential and a couple lines were lovely, they definitely didn't have the spark I had expected from Duffy's writing. To be honest, if I was unaware of how incredible her later writing was I am uncertain that I would have continued reading the collection, which I suppose is the unfortunate result of starting from the beginning when it comes to a person's writing as many poets improve over time. The biggest disappointment was that most of the poems I had loved when I read Standing Female Nude are not included in New Selected Poems, and many of the ones I had particularly not enjoyed or understood such as "Comprehensive" and "$", were. Overall, it provided a good introduction to Duffy to allow the reader to see how her work has evolved even if it's not a portion of the collection I will be flipping back to regularly.
Next up was Selling Manhattan (1987), which from the poems selected shows a definite improvement over Standing Female Nude. Many of the poems in this collection deals with different sorts of love from love for a place ("Homesick") to love for a person that is far away ("Telephoning Home"), and a few are quite powerful. "Warming Her Pearls" about a servant in love with their master was one that particularly stuck with me, as did "Foreign" which discusses what it is like to be in a new country where "You think/ in a language of your own and talk in theirs." However there were still quite a few poems which seemed to not quite fulfill their potential, often suffering from the same abruptness that appears in the previous collection. These include "Money Talks" and "The Brink of Shrieks". Selling Manhattan begins to show what Duffy is capable of, even if she hasn't quite reached it yet.
The Other Country (1990), includes several poems on the theme of childhood which were my favourite. In "Originally", Duffy writes that "All childhood is an emigration." as we grow and change into a new person until we hardly remember what things used to be like. "In Mrs Tilscher's Class" captures the enthralling and anxious nature of childhood, ending with the lines "You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown, / as the sky split open into a thunderstorm." Unfortunately, outside of these childhood poems I was less impressed by the rest of the poems, many of which like "Weasel Words" felt almost nonsensical at times. "Making Money" and "Pere Lachaise" both reverted to the list-like abruptness I didn't enjoy in Standing Female Nude, and in general the collection seemed like more a step backwards than forward from Selling Manhattan.
In Mean Time (1993) Duffy begins to develop some of her signature careful and beautiful language. There were still poems I didn't quite grasp or appreciate, ones such as "The Captain of the 1964 Top of Form Team" and "Fraud" which just didn't find have any form of emotional connection, but they finally became outnumbered by ones I enjoyed. "Moments of Grace" reminded me exactly of what I love about Duffy, her vivid metaphor in ordinary moments, followed by "Valentine" where she writes:
"Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promise light
like the careful undressing of love."
It is with simple stanzas like this, not bulky lists, that the emotional power of her words truly shines and in Mean Time she seems to finally discover this. Even in "Adultery" Duffy makes the abruptness work as she shows the steps of an affair, saying "You're a bastard. / Do it do it do it." It is clear from this selection that although Duffy may still have some growing pains she has begun to crystallize her style and form.
Following Mean Time there is a selection of Other Poems which do not belong to a collection but are collected in New Selected Poems. I didn't find any of these poems incredibly amazing but I suppose they were an interesting addition to the collection especially if this is the first time they have been published together. Quite a few of them were a bit odd, for example "To Boil Bacon" which is exactly what it sounds like. Several poems revert back to the list-format I don't enjoy, including "Kipling" for a description of the many items a man is selling without much emotional impact even when I realized that the reason he is selling everything is a lost bet and "Named For" which describes all the reasons for a person's many names. Overall, these poems seemed pretty ordinary and I am unsure when they were written but it felt like many of them must have been older.
Next was The World's Wife (1999), a themed collection which retells various famous stories but from the female perspective. Some of the poems reminded me slightly of the collection Transformations by Anne Sexton which retells fairytales, just as Duffy does in "Little Red-Cap" in which the Little Red Riding Hood takes an axe to the wolf, finding the "virgin white of my grandmother's bones" inside. In "Mrs Midas", Midas' wife deals with her husband's transformation, and how he had no thought for her when he gave up their ability to touch each other and "from Mrs Tiresias" tells what it was like when her husband came home a woman. Other poems like "Mrs Darwin" and "Mrs Faust" are more clever than poetic but they all show the important role of the woman in a story which is usually told from the man's perspective. The poems in The World's Wife tells old stories in a new way, but what makes them most unique is the beautiful language that Duffy uses to do it.
The final collection included is Feminine Gospels (2002) which is all about the woman. These aren't the wives of men like they are in the previous collection, but independent and interesting all in their own right. Some of the poems such as "The Map-Woman", "Beautiful" and "The Diet" contain the same whimsy present in The World's Wife as Duffy tells an actual story through them. These poems focus on specific women- one who is thin, one who is beautiful, one who is tall- and what happens to them. I found the poems about these archetypes insightful and well written. They are followed by The Laughter of Stafford Girls' High makes up over a third of the selection and is by far the longest poem in the entire book. The problem with it was that I didn't really consider it a poem, it becomes so much like a narrative that it feels more like a story in verse than a poem. It was enjoyable and entertaining to read, but I don't really feel like that makes it a good poem.
New Selected Poems was an uneven collection for me, with my favourite selection being from The World's Wife although there were quite a few other gems throughout. The collection shows Duffy's growth as a writer, and I am definitely interested in picking up Rapture her most recent collection which centres around love and which I have a feeling will be even more to my liking as Duffy seems to be at her best when she is writing passionately. Overall, New Selected Poems provides a good overview of Carol Ann Duffy's writing but it also let me know that when it comes to further purchases I will definitely sticking to her later collections.
Like most selected works, the collection appears in chronological order so the first poems I read were ones excerpted from Standing Female Nude (1985). Rereading them I shared the same feelings I had initially, that although some showed potential and a couple lines were lovely, they definitely didn't have the spark I had expected from Duffy's writing. To be honest, if I was unaware of how incredible her later writing was I am uncertain that I would have continued reading the collection, which I suppose is the unfortunate result of starting from the beginning when it comes to a person's writing as many poets improve over time. The biggest disappointment was that most of the poems I had loved when I read Standing Female Nude are not included in New Selected Poems, and many of the ones I had particularly not enjoyed or understood such as "Comprehensive" and "$", were. Overall, it provided a good introduction to Duffy to allow the reader to see how her work has evolved even if it's not a portion of the collection I will be flipping back to regularly.
Next up was Selling Manhattan (1987), which from the poems selected shows a definite improvement over Standing Female Nude. Many of the poems in this collection deals with different sorts of love from love for a place ("Homesick") to love for a person that is far away ("Telephoning Home"), and a few are quite powerful. "Warming Her Pearls" about a servant in love with their master was one that particularly stuck with me, as did "Foreign" which discusses what it is like to be in a new country where "You think/ in a language of your own and talk in theirs." However there were still quite a few poems which seemed to not quite fulfill their potential, often suffering from the same abruptness that appears in the previous collection. These include "Money Talks" and "The Brink of Shrieks". Selling Manhattan begins to show what Duffy is capable of, even if she hasn't quite reached it yet.
The Other Country (1990), includes several poems on the theme of childhood which were my favourite. In "Originally", Duffy writes that "All childhood is an emigration." as we grow and change into a new person until we hardly remember what things used to be like. "In Mrs Tilscher's Class" captures the enthralling and anxious nature of childhood, ending with the lines "You ran through the gates, impatient to be grown, / as the sky split open into a thunderstorm." Unfortunately, outside of these childhood poems I was less impressed by the rest of the poems, many of which like "Weasel Words" felt almost nonsensical at times. "Making Money" and "Pere Lachaise" both reverted to the list-like abruptness I didn't enjoy in Standing Female Nude, and in general the collection seemed like more a step backwards than forward from Selling Manhattan.
In Mean Time (1993) Duffy begins to develop some of her signature careful and beautiful language. There were still poems I didn't quite grasp or appreciate, ones such as "The Captain of the 1964 Top of Form Team" and "Fraud" which just didn't find have any form of emotional connection, but they finally became outnumbered by ones I enjoyed. "Moments of Grace" reminded me exactly of what I love about Duffy, her vivid metaphor in ordinary moments, followed by "Valentine" where she writes:
"Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promise light
like the careful undressing of love."
It is with simple stanzas like this, not bulky lists, that the emotional power of her words truly shines and in Mean Time she seems to finally discover this. Even in "Adultery" Duffy makes the abruptness work as she shows the steps of an affair, saying "You're a bastard. / Do it do it do it." It is clear from this selection that although Duffy may still have some growing pains she has begun to crystallize her style and form.
Following Mean Time there is a selection of Other Poems which do not belong to a collection but are collected in New Selected Poems. I didn't find any of these poems incredibly amazing but I suppose they were an interesting addition to the collection especially if this is the first time they have been published together. Quite a few of them were a bit odd, for example "To Boil Bacon" which is exactly what it sounds like. Several poems revert back to the list-format I don't enjoy, including "Kipling" for a description of the many items a man is selling without much emotional impact even when I realized that the reason he is selling everything is a lost bet and "Named For" which describes all the reasons for a person's many names. Overall, these poems seemed pretty ordinary and I am unsure when they were written but it felt like many of them must have been older.
Next was The World's Wife (1999), a themed collection which retells various famous stories but from the female perspective. Some of the poems reminded me slightly of the collection Transformations by Anne Sexton which retells fairytales, just as Duffy does in "Little Red-Cap" in which the Little Red Riding Hood takes an axe to the wolf, finding the "virgin white of my grandmother's bones" inside. In "Mrs Midas", Midas' wife deals with her husband's transformation, and how he had no thought for her when he gave up their ability to touch each other and "from Mrs Tiresias" tells what it was like when her husband came home a woman. Other poems like "Mrs Darwin" and "Mrs Faust" are more clever than poetic but they all show the important role of the woman in a story which is usually told from the man's perspective. The poems in The World's Wife tells old stories in a new way, but what makes them most unique is the beautiful language that Duffy uses to do it.
The final collection included is Feminine Gospels (2002) which is all about the woman. These aren't the wives of men like they are in the previous collection, but independent and interesting all in their own right. Some of the poems such as "The Map-Woman", "Beautiful" and "The Diet" contain the same whimsy present in The World's Wife as Duffy tells an actual story through them. These poems focus on specific women- one who is thin, one who is beautiful, one who is tall- and what happens to them. I found the poems about these archetypes insightful and well written. They are followed by The Laughter of Stafford Girls' High makes up over a third of the selection and is by far the longest poem in the entire book. The problem with it was that I didn't really consider it a poem, it becomes so much like a narrative that it feels more like a story in verse than a poem. It was enjoyable and entertaining to read, but I don't really feel like that makes it a good poem.
New Selected Poems was an uneven collection for me, with my favourite selection being from The World's Wife although there were quite a few other gems throughout. The collection shows Duffy's growth as a writer, and I am definitely interested in picking up Rapture her most recent collection which centres around love and which I have a feeling will be even more to my liking as Duffy seems to be at her best when she is writing passionately. Overall, New Selected Poems provides a good overview of Carol Ann Duffy's writing but it also let me know that when it comes to further purchases I will definitely sticking to her later collections.
July 31, 2025
Somewhat awkward collection - essentially it's a Best Of set, relying on the collections the poems were initially published in to give context. I'd have appreciated some introductions, basically. As with any collection like this, some good, some fine, a few great.
July 21, 2017
An excellent collection of poems all across Duffy's many collections. The poetry is intriguing and thought-provoking by itself, as well as providing a really comprehensive view of Duffy's growth as a poet and a person, changing from her early political poetry, to later more personal poems. Most of the poems create a unique psyche and personality, these strong characters are what brings Duffy's poetry alive.
Duffy repeatedly gives voice to those who are lacking a voice, especially in regards to her feminist views. This is particularly interesting in regards to her collection "World's Wife", where she writes a poem from the perspective of a female figure related to a famous male figure, for example "Queen Herod" and "Mrs. Midas".
A good read, especially for those interested in harsher poetry with a strong message. Her creation of character is where she truly excels. Recommended.
Personal favourites: "We Remember Your Childhood Well", "Lizzie, Six", "Psychopath", "Education for Leisure", "Valentine" and "The Devil's Wife".
Duffy repeatedly gives voice to those who are lacking a voice, especially in regards to her feminist views. This is particularly interesting in regards to her collection "World's Wife", where she writes a poem from the perspective of a female figure related to a famous male figure, for example "Queen Herod" and "Mrs. Midas".
A good read, especially for those interested in harsher poetry with a strong message. Her creation of character is where she truly excels. Recommended.
Personal favourites: "We Remember Your Childhood Well", "Lizzie, Six", "Psychopath", "Education for Leisure", "Valentine" and "The Devil's Wife".
March 30, 2019
This book is a compilation of poems from previous collections by poet-laureate Carol Ann Duffy, all of which contain deep wonderful reflections about what it means to be a woman, about women in the shadows, about what history would be like if it were written by women. My favourite? "Beautiful", connecting Helen of Troy, Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe and Lady Di as women constructed as objects of desire and sacrificed at the altars of the societies which worshipped them. I strongly recommend this author, who might not be as acknowledged by feminism as other writers, but certainly deserves a spot in their pantheon. Here is a short but great poem:
MRS DARWIN
7 april 1952
Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him -
Something about that Chimpanzee over there reminds me of you.
MRS DARWIN
7 april 1952
Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him -
Something about that Chimpanzee over there reminds me of you.
dnf
August 19, 2025I'm in a phase of my life where I would adore falling in love with poems, so I decided to pick up a collection from C.A.Duffy.
Unfortunately, and I say this with the utmost respect, me and the writing style used by the author was just not vibing.
I think this can happen with poems - you either get them, or you don't. And while I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with them, this was just not for me.
Unfortunately, and I say this with the utmost respect, me and the writing style used by the author was just not vibing.
I think this can happen with poems - you either get them, or you don't. And while I don't think there is anything particularly wrong with them, this was just not for me.
January 8, 2012
Without any doubt this collection contains some of the worst poems ever written. "To Boil Bacon" is just as patheticly boring as it sounds and "£" which contains 8 real words is diabolically bad. If you like modern poetry or have no taste then it's a winner, if not then this book doesn't even burn decently.
April 28, 2020
A really diverse collection! I loved the poems written about characters we all know like Faust, Solome and Delilah.
I do remember studying some of her poetry in school and university. However there was some explicit poetry I enjoyed - literally one about dicks and another about the meat industry.
I do remember studying some of her poetry in school and university. However there was some explicit poetry I enjoyed - literally one about dicks and another about the meat industry.
September 20, 2015
the genius of this woman is strong
Read
February 24, 2025Tw: Transphobia
I was enjoying the ruthless, yet melodic tone of Duffy's work, until I reached Mrs. Tiresias.
Duffy apperantly has the TERF belief that trans women are men who are out to invade women's spaces/are lesphobic/ will cheat on their spouses with men. Not only this is wrong on so many ways -MTF and transfemme women are constantly under danger of losing their rights along with their safety and get excluded because of such false beliefs and hate speech- but the poem misgenders the title Tiresias by reffering to her with male pronouns and uses gender essentialist language (the gender change is solified in the wife's head because her spouse now has breasts and has periods, tying womanhood to having body bits and menstruation, something many cisgender women may not possess for numerous reasons are berated for.
It's 2025 and trans folks are in more danger than ever. We are under fire, our rights we fought for are getting violently ripped from us. I cannot repeat this enough: You cannot be a feminist if you exclude trans women. Feminism is for everyone, not for a select few. Seeing such vulgar hate speech in an anthologyt that was supposed to be feminist -written by a queer woman too- was a painful experience.
I cannot even rate the book, because the pages feel tainted, now I know how the author regards my fellow trans siblings. I don't think I'll be reading any more Carol Ann Duffy after this one. It may look like an extreme, but the transphobia I face is far more extreme, so I think I'm allowed to be a little petty.
Signed, a tired transmac enby
I was enjoying the ruthless, yet melodic tone of Duffy's work, until I reached Mrs. Tiresias.
Duffy apperantly has the TERF belief that trans women are men who are out to invade women's spaces/are lesphobic/ will cheat on their spouses with men. Not only this is wrong on so many ways -MTF and transfemme women are constantly under danger of losing their rights along with their safety and get excluded because of such false beliefs and hate speech- but the poem misgenders the title Tiresias by reffering to her with male pronouns and uses gender essentialist language (the gender change is solified in the wife's head because her spouse now has breasts and has periods, tying womanhood to having body bits and menstruation, something many cisgender women may not possess for numerous reasons are berated for.
It's 2025 and trans folks are in more danger than ever. We are under fire, our rights we fought for are getting violently ripped from us. I cannot repeat this enough: You cannot be a feminist if you exclude trans women. Feminism is for everyone, not for a select few. Seeing such vulgar hate speech in an anthologyt that was supposed to be feminist -written by a queer woman too- was a painful experience.
I cannot even rate the book, because the pages feel tainted, now I know how the author regards my fellow trans siblings. I don't think I'll be reading any more Carol Ann Duffy after this one. It may look like an extreme, but the transphobia I face is far more extreme, so I think I'm allowed to be a little petty.
Signed, a tired transmac enby
July 21, 2025
Studied Duffy as a young kid in high school, was always struck by the beauty of her work. Returning far too late to her as an adult and my stance stays the same. Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry is the shit 👌
April 23, 2021
i'm sorry but please no
August 4, 2025
not a poetry type of person i think
August 5, 2018
I’d thought of her as sort of obvious – all first-order, meaning near the surface, all on worthy themes like childhood perversity and elderly loss. But her best (“Auden’s Alphabet”, “Shooting Stars”) see her wielding that obviousness well and having fun with drudgery. More historical pieces than I expected, too. Impression: ‘dissolving into childhood’, life as school forever, if school is undemonstrative alienation and uninteresting torment.
The epic autobiographical “Laughter of Stafford Girls’ School” is good; the key to it is that after the anti-authoritarian lark, the poem follows home the prim teachers who failed to control the ruckus.
The epic autobiographical “Laughter of Stafford Girls’ School” is good; the key to it is that after the anti-authoritarian lark, the poem follows home the prim teachers who failed to control the ruckus.
October 21, 2008
It's no secret that I adore Carol Ann Duffy's poetry. Certainly her later poetry, anyway: some of the poems from earliest in her career, I didn't get on very well with. But overall, I love her: I love her style and her imagery a lot. Some of her poetry is funny, some of it playful -- there's a good mix in this volume.
November 19, 2016
This was my first experience reading poems compiled in a book and it was beautiful. I liked the inital poems were really powerful. Also I enjoyed the world's wife collection - what an ingenious thought and such brilliant execution. I wish i could think or write like her. Truly awe inspiring collection!
October 19, 2013
I find it difficult to read poetry for pleasure, rather than studying individual poems. This is a very varied collection. I was particularly struck by the poem of Midas' wife. I'm not sure which poem I would say is my favourite.
August 18, 2024
I'm not sure why, but the only time I could read and thoroughly enjoy this book was when it was sunny outside.
I mostly bookmarked poems from Selling Manhattan. The World's Wife was enjoyably whimsical. Didn't really care for Feminine Gospels.
I mostly bookmarked poems from Selling Manhattan. The World's Wife was enjoyably whimsical. Didn't really care for Feminine Gospels.
March 24, 2012
A five but slightly overbloated, easy shearing to be had, particularly from the earlier collections.
July 5, 2013
Poems of Carol Ann Duffy
May 10, 2016
Good selection from a mostly good poet. Cazza does have a few ticks that irk me, but overall moving and funny.
April 22, 2016
Some poems are too long but her style is beautiful in writing her poetry
December 5, 2016
my favourites of the collection came from 'the world's wife' so the full book of those is my next objective!!
February 24, 2023
The stars are filming us for no-one.
November 4, 2023
Insightful and witty I'd say.
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