Love

by Carol Ann Duffy

One of the English language’s best-loved living poets arrays before us here, in chronological order, her favorites among her poems on the theme of love, drawing on work written over four decades, and she adds to her selection one new poem. It makes for a sequence that is sensual, stimulating, irresistible.

Genres: Poetry, Romance

64 pages, Hardcover

Published August 15, 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

[Georgia Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Poets are like cooks. We plan, prepare, and decide on the order of each dish. Our job is to tantalize and satisfy the palate. Promise and completion are prerequisite to our success. Duffy started off with a bang. The first poem is audacious, uncompromising, lust. It dares to offend and ignite our passions. Bravo! I bought the book based on that first poem. Alas, none that followed come close to its eroticism or fine craft. The rest are good . . . just. There is no leap of greatness or even a slip, slide, or miss on the way to it. I felt bored. And I love a good love poem. I write them, too, damn it. What went wrong? I dozed mentally and sensually for the next pages until one called "Betrothed." It is musical and hints at wedding vows.It begins like this

"I will be yours, be yours,
I'll walk on the moors
with my spade.
Make me your bride.

I will be brave, be brave.
I'll dig my own grave
and lie down.
Make me your own."

I can imagine a couple reading this aloud. I may keep the book for this poem and the first one which is entitled "Oppenheim's Cup and Saucer" and begins

"She asked me to luncheon in fur. Far from
the loud laughter of men, our secret life stirred.

I remember her eyes, the slim rope of her spine.
This is your cup, she whispered, and this mine."

Another order of poems or choices perhaps might have succeeded. I can't say. I don't know all of Duffy's work. These 53 pages were "drawn from across four decades of her work" according to the book flap. Yet, I left this table still hungry.

[Remy · Rating 2 out of 5]

brb gonna print out "Bethrothal" and mail it to somebody with no name on it

[Lou · Rating 5 out of 5]

read it while pacing nervously in a Waterstones. It was 47 pages it would’ve been a waste of £10.99 but Duffy is a good port. Just not worth 20p per page

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I particularly loved 'Warming Her Pearls,' 'Girlfriends,' 'Words, Wide Night,' 'Mrs Beast,' 'Absence,' 'New Year,' 'Betrothal,' 'The Female Husband,' and 'Physics.'

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely. Carol Ann Duffy is one of those poets that are never quite on my radar, and reading this collection made me realise that needs to change. Before I picked up Love, I'd only read a handful of her poems here and there, and although I liked them, I never felt the urge to acquire an entire book of her work. But I certainly found several new favourites in Love (White Writing, New Year, and An Unseen are some of them). I will make sure to keep an eye out for more of Duffy's books.

[Meg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, wow. First of all, this is 4.5 stars from me.
My heart was broken yet put back together.
This was my first duffy novel, and I'm so glad I picked it up from the library because it brought me out of my reading slump. I'd highly recommend this

[elin · Rating 3 out of 5]

duffy’s poetry can be some of my favourite but i think her writing in the world’s wife is more my cup of tea — humorous and subversive with varied intertextual references. in this collection of her love poetry, it can get a little same-y.

[Olivia Fischer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfection! Like your toes curling in pleasure.

[Nathan Barlow · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I ever have love it will be for the sake Carol Ann Duffy’s wishes

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous.

[yoyo · Rating 5 out of 5]

“I think a poem is a spell of kinds
that keeps things living in a written line”

[Jasmine J · Rating 5 out of 5]

lesbian erotic / break-up / grief/ yearning poetry

i cried while reading this its so good