The Bees

by Carol Ann Duffy

The Bees is Carol Ann Duffy’s first collection of poems as Poet Laureate. In it she uses her full poetic range: there are drinking songs, love poems, poems of political anger; there are elegies, too, for beloved friends, and – most movingly – the poet’s own mother.

Woven and weaving through the book is its presiding spirit: the bee. Sometimes the bee is Duffy’s subject, sometimes it strays into the poem, or hovers at its edge. In the end, Duffy’s point is clear: the bee symbolizes what we have left of grace in the world, and what is most precious and necessary for us to protect. The Bees, at once intimate and public, is a work of great power from one of our most cherished poets."

Genres: Poetry, Contemporary, LGBT, Scotland, Queer, Fiction, Animals

84 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2011

About the author

Dame 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.

Reviews

[Liam O'Leary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Video Review

The simple summary is that poetry by Duffy is fun and nice to read but it's hard to get any deep connection or personal feeling from it.

Here's an anecdote I left out of my video review. When I was in Sixth Form (high school) I was one of three of my year group submitted poems to a competition. I looked at the poems the other two girls submitted, and one of them I didn't quite understand. I asked her what it meant and she said 'oh well I don't know really does it have to have a meaning? I choose words that sound nice to me.' And while I might be paraphrasing or just oblivious to the fact that she was dishonestly deflecting a probing question, but part of me thinks it was the truth. It is much the same here, I think Duffy is halfway between Rupi Kaur and Gertrude Stein, half relatable and half lyrical. It's a better balance than both, but still not as good as any poem that really says what it means.

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emily Dickinson understood the importance of bees. She begins a poem "To make a prairie it takes a clover, and one bee--" Another poem venerates the bee as part of a numinous trinity:

In the name of the Bee--
And of the the Butterfly--
And of the Breeze--Amen!

Dickinson thought bees lived irresponsible and adventurous lives.

Carol Ann Duffy also understands the importance of bees, but the cover notes of this emotion-laden volume tells us that for her they carry all the grace of the world. Bees do have roles in the poems here: sometimes they dart through a poem like a thought and sometimes, as in poems specifically about bees, they have a heavy, lumbering presence. However, most of the poems are not about bees, unless they also have a hand in love and death, Duffy's 2 great subjects. Homage is paid to people lost to the poet, her swollen heart turned over to the reader. In fact, my favorite of the collection is called "The Dead." The love poems also expose her. As always, they voice the hook in one's perception of the world, though she is careful to write, "nothing and no one is wrong."

I consider myself fortunate to have come across Carol Ann Duffy a number of years ago and tagged her as someone I want to read. I've learned that to read her poetry is to consistently find intelligence woven with humor, powerful purpose given to us as art. It's no different with this volume. Duffy instructs us, she confesses, and she reminds us the meadow may have some corners untouched by the sun. Then she'll lighten the load by sending in her muse, the bee. She'll get our attention with a line as sharp as a bell--"Out of the silence, I fancied I heard the bronze buzz of a bee...." And so that we remember the grace still abundant in the world she'll delight us with her own bee hymn:

Been deep, my poet bees,
in the parts of flowers,
in daffodil, thistle, rose, even
the golden lotus; so glide
gilded, glad, golden, thus--

wise--and know of us:
how your scent pervades
my shadowed, busy heart,
and honey is art.

[Deborah Pickstone · Rating 5 out of 5]

This surprised me. I think I expected bland but it isn't. And what is one supposed to expect from a Poet Laureate who embodies so many 'firsts? I find it witty, clever and feminine - which I am sure I am not meant to see but - well, she is a woman! Beautiful language choices and actual rhythm - it spoke of England - though she isn't 'English'.

I particularly liked 'Premonitions', having spent a lot of years caring for the dying and their intimates.

I liked echoes of other poets, especially the last line of 'Passing-Bells':

'The old, familiar, clanking cow-bells of the cattle.'

And also 'Ariel'....there were many referenced Shakespeare lines.

On political themes, 'Big Ask' repeated my anger, my disgust at the lies told about Iraq:

'The WMD......you found the stash?
Well, maybe not in Iraq.'

Now I want to read more of her poetry, as this was a first exposure for me. Not perfect but a real attempt to do the job of a Poet Laureate but yet not to lose her own voice. The fit within the job can only get better with familiarity.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have heard of Carol Ann Duffy, as Poet Laureate she is probably the highest profile poet in the UK at the moment. But until now have never read a single poem of hers, so was looking forward to this.

The Bees is not a collection of poems just about the small insect, but the bee features in some of the poems or merely brushes by the poem. Her subjects are diverse in this collection, from the First World war to Oxfam and as diverse as the hive to snow, with several about the bees.

One thing that impresses me about Duffy is her mastery of the English language. With startling brevity she is able to reach out to your soul and grasp it very firmly and carry you along by the emotion of the prose. Very good, will be looking for more of her collections.

[Alice-Elizabeth (Prolific Reader Alice) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to this on audiobook via my local library's service!

I'm always looking for new poetry to read, so when I saw The Bees, I decided to give Carol's writing a try. Don't be fooled by the title, there's a diverse range of topics included in the collection such as recollections of WW1. Carol narrated herself, which for the majority of the listen, I did enjoy. However, there was some disconnect which I do put down to not reading the physical book. Quick, interesting, I look forward to giving more poems a try!

[Jason · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has been on my book radar (or bookdar) for a while now and for a couple of reasons, it is about Bees which are awesome and it is by a Poet Laureate I haven't read yet. I saw this for sale and it's cover really catches your eye so had to buy it. Not all the poems are about bees, at first I thought that was a bit of a cop-out but soon realised a book of poems on one subject would be pretty dull, instead Carol Ann Duffy has weaved in a number of bee related poems in with her other writings.

The book has been split into four sections, I'm not sure if this is correct or not but they feel a bit like seasons....but I could be way off with that. The non-bee poems were really good, far more political that I was expecting, her opinions on war and the destruction of rainforest will probably have rubbed some people the wrong way and because of that they stand out more.

The three highlights for me were "Scheherazade" almost a review of 1001 Arabian nights, "Parliament" a haunting poem about the destruction of forest and my favourite "Drams" these are little snippets you can enjoy between drams of whiskey.

A nice collection that will sit nicely on my bookshelf.

Blog review is here> https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2018...

[Inside A Dog · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this collection a bit of a bumpy ride if I'm honest. References to "bees" are not surprisingly dispersed through the book and there is a poem "The Bees" which opens the collection - and in a way that poem summed up my overall impression of the whole collection.

There are moments here that I thought were absolutely magnificent. I've little to no technical understanding, but it seems to me that when she is on her game, Carol Ann Duffy is an absolute master of her craft. The poem "The Bees" felt like a short introduction to the buzzing words to come and to the way the words had almost been drawn nectar-like from somewhere within the poet's soul to be transported to the page. And there's a real feel of the hither and thither about those first two verses - they crackle with energy and vitality. What I loved about them was the way they appeared almost like random-buzz-words and phrases on first read but on subsequent reads they feel like there's a purpose and structure and destination to all their movement and twists and activity. It was a great start but the third and final verse somehow meandered and ran out of steam a bit and that feeling pervaded throughout the collection for me. The last line of the poem "The Bees" in particular just left me feeling a bit flat and let down. It ends with the line "and honey is art." It just didn't live up to the court and spark of what had gone before - all that noise and shape petering out in what felt to me like a bit of a cliché.

However, having said that it's a bumpy ride, it's also a ride with some colossal highs. There are a several poems that I loved, particularly those where where Carol Ann Duffy is sort of unravelling time and perspective and telling something backwards. The brilliant "The Last Post" takes a couple of Wilfred Owen lines and then explicitly tries to unravel the tragedy of war. It's absolutely gut-wrenching to read because it sort of draws out the hope and promise that there might have been and yet we know wasn't to be for so many millions. She does the same sort of retrospective unravelling for a poem "New Vows" which essentially undoes the marriage vow and it does it superbly.

There are also poems where there is a real anger and ferocity to some of her words and politics is often at the end of the sharpest parts of her tongue. But she does these sorts of poems really well for me. They are never slogans but brilliantly, sometimes beautifully, crafted. I read this collection while the controversial Leveson enquiry was bubbling to the surface and it seemed so apt.

Beyond the politics and commentary on what's around her there are a couple of clever poems which really show off her talent. One is a fabulous pub-crawl and pub name check from John Barleycorn. She essentially uses pub names to craft the poem - it's really clever and it works wonderfully. I'm also seriously impressed by how many different pub names she fits in - I can't help wondering if she knows them all as drinking places - if she does then she is clearly a lover of pubs!

But the best poem in the collection for me is "Water". It's a whispered and somehow haunting description linked to the death bed request for water from someone dying in a hospice (having read a bit since it is in fact about the death of her own mother). It's sad and beautiful and yet somehow it celebrates the love of a parent and a child by noting the simple resonance between that dying request at the end of her mothers life to earlier times when her mother would have been answering that self same request from Carol Ann Duffy as a child. It was one of those poems that I know will stay with me and it's destined to be one of those I learn off by heart I think.

There are many more poems in the collection that I really liked and enjoyed reading. And while overall I found it a bit of a mixed bag, I'd still recommend it to anyone considering reading it. While "Water" is the poem I liked best, perhaps the most stunning lines are in "Cold", another poem about the death of her mother. It ends with the most heart-bursting three lines - I wept on reading them. They are beautiful, but there's almost a brutality to their beauty. They rip your chest open and wrap a fist round your heart and then squeeze. Powerful, wonderful stuff and for that reason and many others, this collection is well worth reading.

[Bloodorange · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not what I expected (I hoped it would contain more ecology-themed poems), but still very good - several very good poems on the passing of her mother, some on the love for her daughter, friends, WWI, some of her Poet Laureate works...

[Amy Norris · Rating 5 out of 5]

bees are the batteries of orchards, gardens, guard them.

I was lucky enough to hear Carol Ann Duffy do a reading of her works at the Sydney Writers Festival last year. She read out several poems from this collection - The Bees. I cannot even describe the awe I was in at hearing her words. Not only is Duffy an immensely talented poet, the way she reads her work is amazing. Her annunciation, emphasis on words, rhythm, beat, and even hand gestures take her work to another level. There is a reason she is the Poet Laureate. She is genius.

Naturally, I was immediately drawn to pick up this collection. It covers a wide range of topics including war, death, love, nature and politics. Of course, there is a recurring motif of bees. As with all of Duffy’s work, this was a pleasure to read and left me stunned at her raw talent. I found myself re-reading lines over and over, just because they were so beautiful and I loved the sound and flow of the sentences. I definitely see myself picking this up every now and then, simply to experience the beauty of her words.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't love this as much as The World's Wife but I still really enjoyed this collection.

The first two-ish sections had some poems that weren't very impactful for me. But the last two sections had consistently great poems that I loved. I love Carol Ann Duffy's work so much.

[Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit of a mixed bag but overall quite good. Best read aloud.

[Nadine in NY Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

By reading this book, I learned I prefer quiet little personal poems with just a description of nature, a fleeting memory, an emotion.  But these poems are in-your-face shouting: I am using Literary Allusions to make Important Social Commentaries.  It's just not my thing.  Reading this felt like work rather than enjoyment.

Ariel
Where the bee sucks
neonicotinoid insecticides
in a cowslip's bell lie,
in fields purple with lavender,
yellow with rape,
and on the sunflower’s upturned face;
on land monotonous with cereals and grain,
merrily,
merrily;
sour in the soil,
sheathing the seed, systemic
in the plants and crops,
the million acres to be ploughed,
seething in the orchards now,
under the blossom
that hangs
on the bough.

[Jonathan Lissner · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This collection was a bit of a mixed bag for me. Some of the poems were Duffy at her best and blew me away, while others I read and thought “meh”. My thoughts may change when I revisit it, but the highlights for me were Last Post, Politics, The Falling Soldier, Virgil’s Bees, Rings, Invisible Ink, Parliament, Snow, Crunch, Music, and Passing Bells.

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVE LOVE LOVVEEEEEE Carol Ann Duffy
‘Rings’ is such a beautiful poem and perhaps one of my all time favourites
‘cold’ is absolutely heartbreaking omgggg

anyway you should read it

[Malte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bees

Here are my bees,
brazen, blurs on paper,
besotted; buzzwords, dancing
their flawless, airy maps.

Been deep, my poet bees,
in the parts of flowers,
in daffodil, thistle, rose, even
the golden lotus; so glide,
gilded, glad, golden, thus -

wise - and know of us:
how your scent pervades
my shadowed, busy heart,
and honey is art.

[Prabhani · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Bees is a random collection of poetry. There are some beautifully written poems. Some are emotional. But there are some other poems I don’t understand a context but felt like random words. Overall it’s a nice poetry collection.

[Nicky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't even know of this collection, which I think must show how distracted I've been lately, because I love Carol Ann Duffy's work -- and there are some glorious ones here. This is her first collection since becoming poet laureate, I believe, and it contains the poetry she wrote in that capacity -- 'Mrs Schofield's GCSE', 'Last Post' -- as well as others, with a lovely motif of bees and honey running through. There's all sorts of poetry here, poetry of loss, political poetry, poetry based on mythology... I think my favourites were 'Last Post' and 'Virgil's Bees'. There's lots of lovely lines, though, as you'd expect.

[Flan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Carol Ann Duffy is a fantastic poet and I have not rated her collection on the basis of her poetic style. I have given this collection 2 stars because I am an uncultured swine, and didn't understand so many of the references Duffy makes. This entire collection is ridden with heavy references. Not what I'm used to reading from her.

I think whilst I enjoyed studying her work during GCSEs and A levels, I enjoy an entirely different style of poetry when reading for leisure. At least I figured that out from reading this.

[Samantha Murgec · Rating 1 out of 5]

What?

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Bees is a collection of poetry by Carol Ann Duffy writing as Poet Laureate. It’s a collection about politics, war, and, of course, bees.

Nowadays, bees are becoming a symbol of global warming. The threats of them dying out and their genocide destroying our planet is very real, and I think that Duffy really evokes this idea of death and the destruction death can bring in this novel.

The theme of bees is prevalent throughout, but the theme that I really focussed on was that of soldiers. Whilst I love Duffy’s work, I’m drip-feeding myself through it so I don’t consume it all at once and am left staring at a blank wall, so I wonder if there is a complete book of poems about her poetry about soldiers. I believe there were three poems about soldiers in this collection, and they all really stood out to me, so much so that I read them multiple times before moving on. Two of Duffy’s closest friends are war photographers, and I really love her poem War Photographer so it does make sense that she writes a lot about war and the impact it has on the individual soldier. I’d like to read more of her writing about this topic.

I wonder why Duffy has such an impact on me where other poets don’t. Perhaps it’s that when I read her poems, I feel like I am reading feelings or situations rather than words. It’s like my eyes unfocus and the words wash over me to create sparks in my brain that mean something.

Whatever it is, I would definitely recommend Duffy’s work. Whilst I know it hasn’t been a hit with everyone, I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of poetry, and I think that it’s one that you could definitely start with to be introduced to Duffy’s work considering it covers a wide variety of topics.

Thank you to my best friend Natalie for lending me your copy of The Bees – now I need to go and buy my own so I can read it again and again!

[Christina]

🇩🇪
Ich weiß nicht genau, wie ich dieses Buch bewerten soll, da die Gedichte sehr ubterschiedlich sind. Manche regen zum Nachdenken an, andere sind emotional oder sprachlich wunderschön. Es ist eine interessante Sammlung.

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I don't really know how to rate this book since the poems vary greatly. Some are thought-provoking, some emotional and others have beautiful language. It's an interesting collection.

[Mimi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This took me more than a month, but it was delicious to read every time I picked it up. There were only a few longer poems with lots of names and places that didn't work for me, but in total I really liked this.

[Isla Robertson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carol pls stop making me cry I’m in an airport

[Mother Goose Librarian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first time reading poetry by Carol Ann Duffy. I actually listened to the audiobook and found that the poetry being read to me actually had a rhythm and cadence that reminded me of bees and their hum. I was captivated and mesmerized by Duffy’s words. I’m interested in reading more of her work. If you enjoy poetry, I recommend that you give The Bees a read and/or listen.

[maddi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐️

[Amanda Artist Cat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Out of the silence, I fancied I heard the bronze buzz of a bee...

Carol Ann Duffy is undoubtedly the Queen of poetry and of my heart. No other poet could rival the way she enraptures and enchants me with every word.

[S.B. Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetry can be a risk, hence my suggestion that if you are dipping your toes in for the first time, libraries (if the Neo-conservatives in you country haven’t closed them) are an excellent place to begin.

Poet Laureates of the American or English variety are also good places to start. The Bees is Carol Ann Duffy’s first book as England’s Poet Laureate and demonstrates her amazing and varied facility with form and sound.

The theme of Bees ties this collection together, but you don’t have to be a budding apiarist to get full enjoyment. It’s not all about Bees. Most poetry collections I have read before present a poet with a very distinct style or tone. Reading Duffy’s The Bees I am truly in awe of her facility with sound, particularly internal rhyme and how she manipulates the speed of the poem.

If you think that rhyme or playfulness with sound is dead in contemporary poetry than I think you should check Duffy out. That’s not to say its all sunshine and roses. Duffy brings uses her considerable skill to tackle the serious themes in poetry. Take The Last Post as an example[ follow link to video on my blog ]

[Nathalie (keepreadingbooks) · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is very easy to appreciate Duffy’s poetic genius. She has a way with words that most would envy (and a vocabulary to match it) – indeed, many of these poems contain strings of words rather than actual sentences, but put together in a way that creates sense, image, a certain mood and a rhythm. For that she earns an extra star.

But for all this genius, she failed to touch me. Appreciating skill is not the same as being touched (unfortunately). A couple of poems did pull at my heartstrings – mainly the ones relating to bees and nature and her mother – but they didn’t make a big difference overall. I was also slightly confused about the several soldier poems included in this collection – perhaps I just didn’t get the connection?

/NK

[ToriJaneReads · Rating 3 out of 5]

Genre: Poetry
Pace: Medium
Format: Paperback
Pages: 96
Rating: 3*s
Quote(s): "a silver coin for a full flask, a gold coin for don't ask". "your promises latin, feedback, static, gibberish,". "Fact was in black and white; fiction was colour."

A new poet to me but I enjoyed the majority of the poems within this collection. Some were very impactful and really made me feel the emotions behind the words or to think about the poems reasoning. However, some I felt were just there, that Duffy had just chosen her words at ransom.

Overall, I would recommend this for any poetry fan and I would read more of her poems in the future if I were to come across them but I don't know yet if I will purposefully seek her collections out.

[Lisa Hobson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Duffy's poetry and this collection is no exception. It is witty, poignant and clever: her language choices are exceptional, unexpected and thought- provoking. Threading through this collection are stories of and images of bees, from the human bees who are used to pollenate tress to the mythical bee of the final poem, which supposedly inspires artists of all kinds. However, my favourite poem in the collection is 'Premonitions' which charts the relationship between the poet and her dying mother. Exquisite stuff.