Feminine Gospels: Poems - Softcover

Duffy, Carol Ann

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571211305 ISBN 13: 9780571211302

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005

Synopsis

A new collection of poems ranging over the experience of women―historical and imagined, real-life and larger than life―from the award-winning author of The World's Wife.

From the sadness of Elizabeth I, looking back on her long and powerful but lonely life, to the travails of a woman whose work is literally never done as she continues to trawl the seas to feed her billion offspring, to a movingly lyrical reflection on the beauty of a growing child, Carol Ann Duffy explores in this volume the myriad components of women's lives and loves through the crystallizing prism of poetry. Sometimes erotic and personal, sometimes historical and grand, sometimes witty and full of surprises, the poems in Feminine Gospels are all beautifully crafted works that are as varied in style as the poems in Duffy's earlier acclaimed volume The World's Wife. Together, they will challenge and entertain as they explore the fullness of the female condition through their author's unique poetic voice.

About this title

About the Author:

Carol Ann Duffy is the author of several volumes of poetry, including two for children. Her most recent volume is The World's Wife (Faber, 1999). She lives in Manchester, England.

From Booklist:

One of Britain's premiere poets here does what she does best, joining wild, surrealistic imagery and pointillist detail to create sharply realized, visionary poems. This collection emphasizes a frequent theme in Duffy's work: the power and complexity of feminine archetypes. Some of the characters who occupy these poems are familiar--Cleopatra, Marilyn Monroe, the Virgin Mary, Elizabeth I--but more are Duffy's inventions, such as the woman whose hometown was etched like a tattoo across her body, and the woman who dieted herself down to microscopic size. Clever conceits all, but Duffy never settles for mere cleverness. Her poetic technique is sure and subtle: long, gamboling lines seem casual but scan as exacting iambic pentameter; word choices seem conversational but express internal rhymes. A masterful long poem in which the entire student body of a girls' school becomes convulsed with laughter and changes the teachers' lives shows Duffy's skill at its peak. Shorter lyrics, some erotic and others tender, round out a mature and compelling collection. Patricia Monaghan
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About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0571211305
• ISBN 13: 9780571211302
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 80