Poetry Jam 2020: Carol Ann Duffy

[lunabee34]

Our reading selection for this month is Carol Ann Duffy's The World's Wife. Can't wait to see what you all think about this collection.

Here's our upcoming selections:

April: Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnets from the Portuguese

May: Sandra Cisneros' My Wicked Wicked Ways

June: Carl Sandburg Honey and Salt

July: Mascha: The Poems of Mascha Kaléko

August: Shakespeare's sonnets

September: W. D. Snodgrass' Not for Specialists

October: Toi Derricotte's Tender

November: Franny Choi's Soft Science

December: Pablo Neruda's The Heights of Machu Picchu

Comments

[lunabee34]

The conceit here is that each of the poems is written from the perspective of a literary, historical, or mythological woman (only some of whom are actually wives; at least eight of them are not about wives by my count). I love how many of these women are from classical mythology which dovetails nicely with all the other reading I’ve been doing lately.

Here’s some comments on some of the poems:

“Little Red-Cap”—the wolf is a poet, a reader; the speaker entices him because she knows he’ll lead her into the dark, scary woods of poetry; pursuing poetry is physically dangerous and impoverishing; she wants to dissect it all to figure out how it works and then put it back together; then she’s done with the wolf

“Thetis”—she transforms; always finds herself squeezed by a man and in danger of him; the child teaches her something and transforms her again

“Queen Herod”—this could be read as a genderbend, as if there is no King Herod and Queen Herod is the only ruler, but I actually prefer reading it as if there is a Queen Herod and that she’s actually the one who authorizes all those deaths to spare her daughter the potential horrors of marriage

“Mrs. Midas”—“the kitchen / filled with the smell of itself” (what a great line!); she’s terrified of being turned to gold; his decision painted as selfish in a different way than usual; he didn’t think of how his new gift would separate them

“from Mrs. Tiresias”—when he’s turned into a woman, his period is treated as a real medical issue (this seems like some lines Wendy Cope would have written LOL)

“Pilate’s Wife”—contrasts the effeminate and ineffectual Pilate with the powerful, sexualized Jesus

“Mrs. Aesop”—imagines him actually living out all the aphorisms he wrote and how tedious that would be

“Mrs. Darwin”—implies credit to her for his evolutionary theories; funny

“Mrs. Sisyphus”—rhyme in this poem irritates me where it’s been unobtrusive up to this point

“Mrs. Faust”—Faust is greedy and worldly even before he makes the deal with the devil; she’s right along with him; she goes on all these journeys of self-exploration on his dime; she gets everything when the devil comes to get his soul, but the joke is on the devil; he doesn’t have a soul; I think the husband and wife are cut from the same cloth in this one, and they don’t seem to be as opposed to each other as some of the other couples

“The Devil’s Wife”—I don’t really get what’s happening in this poem; I think they either kidnapped and murdered a kid or killed their own baby, but I’m not sure; the poem never explicitly says what they did wrong

“Circe”—best line ever: “the moon / like a lemon popped in the mouth of the sky”

“Mrs. Lazarus”—I love this line: “he was vanishing / to the small zero held by the gold of my ring”; oh, this one hurts my heart; Lazarus is dead just long enough for her move on, and then what’s she supposed to do now that he’s alive again?

“Pope Joan”—having a baby is the closest we ever get to God, a sentiment with which I agree

“Penelope”—I love that she finds occupation and meaning in her weaving in Odysseus’s absence; “I was picking out / the smile of a woman at the centre / of this world, self-contained, absorbed, content, / most certainly not wanting”; and then Odysseus shows up

“Mrs. Beast”—advocates marrying a beast because they feel blessed by someone marrying them and treat them right; “let the less loving one be me.”

[tamsin]

One thing I found really interesting about “Little Red-Cap” is that while the wolf offered her a lot of what she was after, he also took something from her without her even noticing until she kills him - I read the bones of her grandmother as standing for her heritage, her roots.

[lunabee34]

Oh that's a fantastic reading. I didn't pick up on that. I love it.

[tamsin]

:)

Little Red-Cap

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I just re-read Little Red Cap and liked it a lot, even more than the first reading. The rhyme (especially in the last stanza) is fun. I like how she sort of hides her rhyme (murder clues/ I lost both shoes). And it's very true: what little girl doesn't dearly love a wolf? Lots of nice phrases: at childhood's end, allotments, murder clues.

I liked Mrs. Darwin and Mrs. Aesop, too, they were sort of weary wife funny.

Re: Little Red-Cap

[lunabee34]

I agree! I like the way she uses rhyme in most of the poems, so when it becomes more conspicuous in others, it really stands out to me.

I love poems about writing, so I was destined to like this one anyway. :)

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I really liked "Queen Herod." I liked the idea of the Three Wise Men of the Bible being Queens. I liked the idea of it being the Queen's ruthless protection of her daughter that led to the slaughter of the innocents. I also think it's interesting to think of the daughter growing up and becoming a disciple of Jesus. So the Queen 'loses' her daughter to him but not in the way that she feared. I have seen a lot of genderbends but never this one, and it really made me think. I agree with you that King Herod is there and just a figurehead. Also, sometimes Duffy's switch from old voice to modern voice is a bit jarring (or just jarring to begin with) but I kind of liked when she shifted to modern language for the list of things for the Boyfriend (the threat). And the three Wise Queens made me think of Sleeping Beauty and the fairy godmothers.

[lunabee34]

Oooh, yes. That's a very clever take on it, that maybe the daughter becomes a follower rather than becomes his wife (which, of course, in Christianity are the same thing).

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

I liked Penelope a lot too. I liked the idea of her getting lost in her craft and not waiting for something to happen outside her. And there was a lot of nice phrases to describe the colours of the thread and the things she was sewing. Under normal circumstances my sons' father is gone a lot so I get that getting on with life while someone else is gone kind of world.

I liked Demeter, too. It really drives home a mother's love at reunion.

I liked Anne Hathaway too because I think there were a long line of angry/sarcastic/disgruntled ones and it came at a nice place in the anthology. It was refreshing. But I so wished it were a proper sonnet (or maybe I'm not clever enough to see what she's doing and there is some relation. I mean there's a couplet at the end but they aren't the same length of line). I mean, come on, it's Shakespeare! But no :/

[lunabee34]

Have you read Madeline Miller's Circe? I really like the treatment of Penelope in that book. Homer depicts her as just waiting, as if her life has no meaning without Odysseus and as if her whole life is just on standstill, but like you, I really enjoy her having meaning without him. I sense in this poem that she's irritated about his return, too.

I didn't know anything about Anne Hathaway, so that poem was a treat for me, too. Very sweet. I didn't even notice that it was skirting close to a sonnet; meter and form are always the last thing I notice.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

No, but I have seen it in the library collection. I don't read a whole lot of mythology.