You -- Carol Ann Duffy

Guest poem submitted by Jennifer Cushion :

(Poem #1779) You Uninvited, the thought of you stayed too late in my head, so I went to bed, dreaming you hard, hard, woke with your name, like tears, soft, salt, on my lips, the sound of its bright syllables like a charm, like a spell. Falling in love is glamorous hell; the crouched, parched heart like a tiger ready to kill; a flame's fierce licks under the skin. Into my life, larger than life, beautiful, you strolled in. I hid in my ordinary days, in the long grass of routine, in my camouflage rooms. You sprawled in my gaze, staring back from anyone's face, from the shape of a cloud, from the pining, earth-struck moon which gapes at me and I open the bedroom door. The curtains stir. There you are on the bed, like a gift, like a touchable dream. -- Carol Ann Duffy

I feel this poem captures the initial stages of resistance people go through
when they fall in love.  It is so much easier to pretend it isn't happening,
to immerse yourself in "ordinary days".  Yet, despite all the efforts, the
person invades your every thought.  The first verse in particular conveys
this.

Jennifer Cushion.

Prayer -- Carol Ann Duffy

Still looking out to sea, a guest poem sent in by Martin Davis, who writes...

You've run a poem by Carol Ann Duffy before, (Valentine, Poem #865). I've
thought of suggesting this one, Prayer, in the past, and, as with so many
things, not got round to it. However, having been struck by the quiet
restraint of the Whitman poem, and its relevance to post-September 11th
emotions, I really feel that I should put it forward now. It's got the
best of Duffy's direct simplicity, and it has an oblique angle on the
theme of the sea as both symbol and backdrop.

(Poem #987) Prayer Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer utters itself. So, a woman will lift her head from the sieve of her hands and stare at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift. Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth enters our hearts, that small familiar pain; then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth in the distant Latin chanting of a train. Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales console the lodger looking out across a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls a child's name as though they named their loss. Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer - Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre. -- Carol Ann Duffy

I think that most people have some form of words that they fall back on in
times of stress; it's perhaps one of the well-springs of poetry.
Obviously prayers ('Pray for us now...') are a basic form of this, but
there are others - Bob Marley's No woman, no cry - Everything gonna be all
right...is one.

Duffy's brilliance is to take a very naturalistic rhythm - few people who
hear this read aloud realise that it is quite a formal sonnet structure -
and then, right at the end, to touch on a secular litany that is so
intimate that anyone I've ever discussed the poem with feels that she has
had an extraordinary insight into their life.

It's that last stanza that may need some explanation and I'll be
interested to see how well this poem crosses cultures. Rockall, Malin,
Dogger, Finisterre are all sea areas in the shipping forecast issued by
the Meteorological Service, and broadcast by BBC Radio Four. The shipping
forecast always follows a set pattern, a formalised routine. You can read
the current one at :

[broken link] http://www.met-office.gov.uk/datafiles/offshore.html

Read it out loud and savour the words as they roll off your tongue!
There's a map of the shipping forecast areas at :

[broken link] http://www.met-office.gov.uk/leisure/shiparea.html

The broadcast goes out at 12.30 and 05.30, so that you tend to catch it if
you can't sleep late at night or if you've woken up early, worrying - and
then you follow the coast of the British Isles in your mind's eye and
think of those working the dark sea areas, and sometimes you feel soothed.

There is a short biography of Carol Ann Duffy, a complete list of works
and a full bibliography at :

[broken link] http://www.sbu.ac.uk/~stafflag/carolannduffy.html

The site also includes a good summary of the press reaction to her
suggestion for the post of Poet Laureate, and the pusillanimity of the
Prime Minister, who was worried how her appointment 'might play in Middle
England'.

Martin

Valentine -- Carol Ann Duffy

Guest poem submitted by Bob Cooper, back in
February; we're only getting to run it now:

(Poem #865) Valentine Not a red rose or a satin heart. I give you an onion. It is a moon wrapped in brown paper. It promises light like the careful undressing of love. Here. It will blind you with tears like a lover. It will make your reflection a wobbling photo of grief. I am trying to be truthful. Not a cute card or kissogram. I give you an onion. Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips, possessive and faithful as we are, for as long as we are. Take it. Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring, if you like. Lethal. Its scent will cling to your fingers, cling to your knife. -- Carol Ann Duffy

 From "Mean time"
 Anvil books, 1993.

Some poems stay with you from the moment you read them. This is one of them.
It's direct. Simple. Worth going back to. It's allusive. I hear Cordelia
telling King Lear she loves him like salt. I hear Peer Gynt peeling his
onion. Then I just hear the poet, again, telling it how it is for her and
her lover with the uncomfortable frankness and absurdity we sometimes need
when we start using the language of love. I guess it's as simply complicated
as any or all relationships that mean so much to each of us. I think its
strength is partly because of its juxtaposition of positive and negative
features, and because we are never left with anything that's clearly good or
distinctly bad.

I hope it isn't just a poem of the 1990s.

Bob Cooper.

[About the poet]

Originally she's from Glasgow, but she learnt a lot about poetry in
Liverpool (where she was a pal of Adrian Henri). Now she knocks around in
London with Jackie Kay (another poet from Glasgow). Dated details of her
poetry are in the Oxford Companion to 20th Century Literature.