Elegies

by Carol Ann Duffy

In Elegies Carol Ann Duffy, one of the English language’s best-loved living poets arrays from her own archives, in chronological order, her favourites among her poems on death, grief and loss, drawing on work written over four decades, and adds to her selection one wholly new poem. It makes for a sequence that is warm, vibrant, alive.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, LGBT

56 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 2, 2023

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

[Stella · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some beautiful poems, most didn’t grip me so much. Maybe I’ll try again sometime.

[Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elegies is a brilliant selection of Duffy's poems on death that I feel I did not appreciate the way it so deserved. They're poems by Duffy so it goes without saying that they are incredible. The inclusion of each poem is so beautifully considered, and each poem is so beautifully constructed. Duffy touches on several ideas associated with death, bereavement, and grief, and references some higher profile deaths. Favourites included Letters from Deadmen, Elegy, The Rain, and Long Table.

I think my enjoyment of Elegies was dampened by the overall theme, which has more to do with me than the poems. Reading a book consisting only of death poetry is not quite as enjoyable to me as reading other collections by Duffy has been in the past.

[Antonio Di · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nulla da dire sull'autrice. Colpisce come al solito: tagliente caustica e profonda. Poesie lunghe tristi che esplorano i temi del dolore, del ricordo, del lutto e della morte in genere soprattutto dei propri cari. Lo stile è quello della Duffy, ma quando si parla di elegie e di dolore, la raccolta lascia un senso lugubre di tristezza che lascia l'amaro in bocca. L'ho preferita esplorando altri temi ma nulla toglie prestigio e bellezza ai suoi versi.

[parker · Rating 3 out of 5]

generally beautiful words about death, some were ordinary and apathetic but a couple spoke out to me ('death and the moon' + 'elegy' + 'water' + 'cold' + 'wedding ring' were truly gorgeous)

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful poems from one of the current masters

[Khloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully crafted poetry, with a writer that treads with words and emotions in ways that take you out of the world you are sitting in and bring you in a world of ink, beauty and tragedy.

I have always been one to prefer sad poems, and this collection centred around grief, loss, transformation, will definitely hold a place of honour in my library.