Scottish Texts - Mrs Sutherland's English Classroom



Poetry

By Carol Ann Duffy

National 5 Scottish Text

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Kirkcaldy High School

English Department

Contents

1. War Photographer

2. Valentine

3. Havisham

4. Originally

5. Anne Hathaway

6. Mrs Midas

Information on the Poet

Critically acclaimed as well as popular with readers, Carol Ann Duffy is a playwright, children’s writer and poet whose many best selling collections of poems include, Mean Time, The World’s Wife and most recently Rapture.

One of the best known and most celebrated of living poets, Duffy was appointed Poet Laureate in 2009, the first female poet to hold the position.

As well as being Poet Laureate, Duffy is currently the Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Written in a demotic style, using as she says “simple words in a complicated way”, Duffy’s poems often explore political, philosophical and social issues, especially issues centring on gender, identity and inequality. Though her range of cultural references is wide, she is often drawn to religious language and to the world of fairy tales.

Duffy is also particularly known for her exploration of feminine archetypes, the subversion of gender stereotypes and her dramatic monologues. These monologues are often written in the voices of characters marginalised or demonised by mainstream society. 

A lapsed Catholic for whom poetry is very close to prayer, in each of her poems Duffy is “trying to reveal a truth”.

War Photographer

In his darkroom he is finally alone

with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.

The only light is red and softly glows,

as though this were a church and he

a priest preparing to intone a Mass.

Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.

He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays

beneath his hands which did not tremble then

though seem to now. Rural England. Home again

to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,

to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet

of running children in a nightmare heat.

Something is happening. A stranger’s features

faintly start to twist before his eyes

a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries

of this man’s wife, how he sought approval

without words to do what someone must

and how the blood stained into foreign dust.

A hundred agonies in black-and-white

from which his editor will pick out five or six

for Sunday’s supplement. The reader’s eyeballs prick

with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers.

From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where

he earns his living and they do not care.

The content and ideas of the poem.

Discuss:

What is happening in the poem?

Where is it set?

Homework.

• Write a paragraph in your jotter explaining what the poem is about.

The Setting of the poem

How would you prove the following points by referring to the text?

1. The man has been to many trouble spots of the world

2. The man is now working in a familiar part of the world which is peaceful by comparison to the places mentioned above.

3. There is a stark contrast between his home in England, and the places where he works.

4. He remembers the death of a man and the picture he had taken with the unspoken permission of the man’s wife.

Analysis

Stanza One

“spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.”

1. To what is the poet referring here?

2. Whose “suffering” is contained in the spools?

3. Why might the photographer be trying to order his pictures?

4. “ordered rows” – what else could this phrase be alluding to?

5. “The only light is red” The poet makes effective use of colour throughout the poem. Why is the colour red significant here? Explain fully.

6. “as though this were a church and he/ a priest preparing to intone a Mass.”

What technique is used in these lines?

7. Why is this image effective? What does it tell us about the photographer’s attitude to developing the photographs?

8. “Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass”

What do you notice about the sentence structure of this line?

9. Why has the poet made reference to these places?

10. Where is the final sentence “All flesh is grass” taken from? What does it mean? Why has it been included in the poem?

Stanza Two

1. How do the photographs now affect the photographer as he develops them?

2. What contrast does the poet create in this stanza?

3. What is the effect of the contrast?

“to fields which don’t explode beneath the feet/of running children in a nightmare heat.”

4.Why does the poet make reference to “children” here?

5. What tone is established and how is it established?

Stanza Three

“half-formed ghost”

1. This statement is ambiguous. Explain fully the different meanings.

“He remembers the cries/ of this man’s wife, how he sought approval/ without words to do what someone must/ and how blood stained into foreign dust.”

2. These lines draw attention to the internal conflict/dilemma experienced by a war photographer. What is that conflict/dilemma?

3. What do these lines reveal about how the photographer now feels about the image he has captured?

Stanza Four

“A hundred agonies in black-and-white”

1. This metaphor is ambiguous. Explain the different meanings.

“from which his editor will pick out five or six/ for Sunday’s supplement.”

2. What do these lines reveal about the editor’s attitude to the images?

3. How and why does this vary from the photographer’s attitude?

“The reader’s eyeballs prick/ with tears between the bath and pre-lunch beers.”

4. What do these words tell us about the reader’s response to the photographs and therefore to conflicts in far away places?

“from the aeroplane he stares impassively at where/ he earns his living and they do not care.”

5. Who is the “they”?

6. What do these final lines say about ‘our’ attitude to conflict in other countries?

7. What tone is established?

Poetic Form

1. What do you notice about the length of each stanza?

2. What about the rhyme scheme? Does it vary or remain constant?

3. What could the poetic form represent in terms of what the photographer is trying to do to his photographs and the effect of his attempts?

Evaluation – Group Task

1. What themes did you notice when reading and discussing the poem? Write these down.

2. This poem asks a number of questions but does not answer them (which is the duty of all good literature!) Can you identify any questions the poem raises?

3. Why do you think Duffy chose the character of the war photographer?

4. What is the main purpose of the poem?

5. In what way can Carol Ann Duffy herself be viewed as the ‘real’ photographer?

Point Quotation Importance

|The poem begins in a very private setting|"In his darkroom.." |Place of peace and tranquillity |

| | | |

| | |Safe from the dangers of the other half |

| | |of his work |

|The man has been to many trouble spots of|"Belfast, Beirut, Phnom Penh." |Shows the extent of unrest in the world –|

|the world | |trouble is everywhere |

|The man is now working in a familiar part|"Rural England. Home again." |Gives the impression of idyllic setting; |

|of the world which is peaceful by | |stark contrast to the warzones |

|comparison to the places mentioned above.| | |

|Again, emphasises safety and peaceful |"fields which don't explode beneath the |Children in England play in fields whilst|

|life at home, shocking image, contrast |feet..." |those in warzones are in constant danger;|

|with the violence abroad. | |children represent innocence so shocking |

| | | |

|He remembers the death of a man and the |"foreign dust" |Emphasises the troubles are happening |

|picture he had taken with the unspoken | |elsewhere. ‘Foreign’ that we will forget|

|permission of the man’s wife. Morally | |the world’s troubles because they are not|

|questionable? | |ours! |

Imagery

Duffy creates some powerful and disturbing images in this poem. For example:

'fields which don't explode beneath the feet of running children in a nightmare heat.'

'how the blood stained into foreign dust.'

'a hundred agonies in black-and-white.'

The techniques used by the poet

Technique Quotation Analysis

|Alliteration/Metaphor |spools of suffering set out in rows | |

| | | |

|Simile |as though this were a church and he a | |

| |priest | |

| | | |

|Metaphor/Alliteration |solutions slop | |

| | | |

| | | |

|Emotive Language |fields which don't explode beneath the | |

| |feet of running children | |

| | | |

|Imagery |blood stained into foreign dust | |

| | | |

| | | |

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 a 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.

Background to the Poem

The poem on the surface is about the giving of an unusual present for Valentine’s Day but it is really an exploration of love and the nature of relationships between two people. The poem is universal; it could be any lover to any beloved as there is no indication of the sex of either the “I” or the “you”. This is a good poem to write about because it has a single central image which is developed throughout the poem. The onion is an extended metaphor for love.

How does Duffy use structure?

The structure of a poem is the way in which the poet chooses to set the poem out. This includes rhyme schemes, rhythm patterns, word or sentence patterns and the way the lines are laid out.

Duffy wants the receiver of her onion to know that she has chosen it because she feels that it is the best and the most genuine declaration of her love. Duffy rejects the traditional symbols of love because she feels that they have become meaningless. The “satin hearts”, “red roses” cute cards etc are not acceptable to Duffy because each has ceased to be original; they are stereotypical gifts which have been sent so many times that they have become superficial and insignificant.

Notice how Duffy structures these lines to emphasise that she does not approve of these types of gifts: ‘Not a red rose or satin heart.” & “Not a cute card or a kissogram”. In both cases the word ‘not’ is stressed because it appears first in the line and it is the very first word of the poem. Duffy adds impact to her point by repeating the structure of the lines and by having the lines standing alone.

Also, Duffy is making a very personal and direct declaration of love. The message is sent from the speaker to the intended lover through her use of ‘I’ and ‘You’. Duffy uses short lines to emphasise the emotional plea.

The whole poem is written in free verse. This is an important choice because it echoes the natural flow of speech and highlights that love and relationships have no order of patterns.

The poet seems to reject any overly sentimental and materialistic ideas about love. Instead she tries to present us with a more ‘truthful’ and realistic picture of what love really is and what being in love truly means.

Homework.

• Write a paragraph in your jotter explaining what the poem is about.

Discussion Questions.

1. What are the things that are normally associated with Valentine’s Day that Carol Ann Duffy rejects? Why do you think that she rejects them?

2. Instead of these things what object does Carol Ann Duffy choose to represent love? What is surprising about this?

3. List all the words/phrases that seem out of place in a Valentine poem. E.g. ‘tears‘, ‘grief’. Why do you think they are included?

4. Does the poem fulfil our expectation of a poem entitled ‘Valentine’? Why?

Analysis

The poet writes about her relationship as if it is an onion. We can say that she uses a METAPHOR. She returns to the image over and over again, and continually develops the comparison. We can refer to the language device as an EXTENDED METAPHOR.

Havisham

Beloved sweetheart bastard. Not a day since then

I haven’t wished him dead. Prayed for it

so hard I’ve dark green pebbles for eyes,

ropes on the back of my hands I could strangle with.

Spinster. I stink and remember. Whole days

in bed cawing Nooooo at the wall; the dress

yellowing, trembling if I open the wardrobe;

the slewed mirror, full-length, her, myself, who did this

to me? Puce curses that are sounds not words.

Some nights better, the lost body over me,

my fluent tongue in its mouth in its ear

then down till I suddenly bite awake. Love’s

hate behind a white veil; a red balloon bursting

in my face. Bang. I stabbed at a wedding-cake.

Give me a male corpse for a long slow honeymoon.

Don’t think it’s only the heart that b-b-b-breaks.

Background and Commentary

This poem is a monologue spoken by Miss Havisham, a character in Dickens' Great Expectations. Jilted by her scheming fiancé, she continues to wear her wedding dress and sit amid the remains of her wedding breakfast for the rest of her life, while she plots revenge on all men. She hates her spinster state - of which her unmarried family name constantly reminds her (which may explain the choice of title for the poem).

She begins by telling the reader the cause of her troubles - her phrase “beloved sweetheart bastard” is a contradiction in terms (called an oxymoron). She tells us that she has prayed so hard (with eyes closed and hands pressed together) that her eyes have shrunk hard and her hands have sinews strong enough to strangle with - which fits her murderous wish for revenge. (Readers who know Dickens' novel well might think at this point about Miss Havisham's ward, Estella - her natural mother, Molly, has strangled a rival, and has unusually strong hands.)

Miss Havisham is aware of her own stink - because she does not ever change her clothes or wash. She stays in bed and screams in denial. At other times she looks and asks herself “who did this” to her. She sometimes dreams almost tenderly or erotically of her lost lover, but when she wakes the hatred and anger return. Thinking of how she “stabbed at the wedding cake” she now wants to work out her revenge on a “male corpse” - presumably that of her lover.

The poem is written in four stanzas which are unrhymed. Many of the lines run on, and the effect is like normal speech. The poet

• uses many adjectives of colour - “green”, “puce”, “white” and “red” and

• lists parts of the body “eyes”, “hands”, “tongue”, “mouth”, “ear” and “face”.

Sometimes the meaning is clear, but other lines are more open - and there are hints of violence in “strangle”, “bite”, “bang” and “stabbed”. It is not clear what exactly Miss Havisham would like to do on her “long slow honeymoon”, but we can be sure that it is not pleasant.

Homework.

• Write a paragraph in your jotter explaining what the poem is about.

Havisham: Discussion Questions

• Why does the poet omit Miss Havisham's title and refer to her by her surname only?

• How does the poet convey Miss Havisham’s conflicting emotions in line 1?

• What feelings are conveyed by the metaphor “dark green pebbles” in stanza 1?

• Why does the poet write “spinster” on its own? What does Miss Havisham think about this word and its relevance to her?

• How is a sense of decay created in stanza 2?

• What is the effect of “Nooooo” and “b-b-breaks”? Why are these words written in this way?

• What is the effect of the lack of punctuation in line 12?

• What is the meaning of the image of “a red balloon bursting”?

• Why does the character refer to her lover as a “lost body” and a “male corpse”?

• Why does the poet use the word “b-b-b-breaks” as the last word of the poem?

• How far does the poet want us to sympathise with Miss Havisham?

• Does the reader have to know about Great Expectations to understand the poem?

• Does Miss Havisham have a fair view of men? What do you think of her view of being an unmarried woman?

• Perhaps the most important part of the poem is the question “who did this/to me?” How far does the poem show that Miss Havisham is responsible for her own misery, and how far does it support her feelings of self-pity and her desire for revenge?

Analysis:

Content

Who is speaking? To whom?

Structure/Form

Language

Themes / Attitudes / Ideas (in addition to content)

Effect on Reader

Similarities / Links to Other Texts

Additional Information / References / Websites

Originally

We came from our own country in a red room

which fell through the fields, our mother singing

our father’s name to the turn of the wheels.

My brothers cried, one of them bawling Home,

Home, as the miles rushed back to the city,

the street, the house, the vacant rooms

where we didn’t live any more. I stared

at the eyes of a blind toy, holding its paw.

All childhood is an emigration. Some are slow,

leaving you standing, resigned, up an avenue

where no one you know stays. Others are sudden.

Your accent wrong. Corners, which seem familiar,

leading to unimagined, pebble-dashed estates, big boys

eating worms and shouting words you don’t understand.

My parents’ anxiety stirred like a loose tooth

in my head. I want our own country, I said.

But then you forget, or don’t recall, or change,

and, seeing your brother swallow a slug, feel only

a skelf of shame. I remember my tongue

shedding its skin like a snake, my voice

in the classroom sounding just like the rest. Do I only think

I lost a river, culture, speech, sense of first space

and the right place? Now, Where do you come from?

strangers ask. Originally? And I hesitate.

Commentary

Memories play a significant role in the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy, particularly her recollections of childhood places and events. The poem "Originally," published in The Other Country (1990), draws specifically from memories of Duffy's family's move from Scotland to England when she and her siblings were very young. The first-born child, Duffy was just old enough to feel a deep sense of personal loss and fear as she traveled farther and farther away from the only place she had known as "home" and the family neared its alien destination. This sentiment is captured in "Originally," in which it is described in the rich detail and defining language of both the child who has had the experience and the adult who recalls it.

As the title suggests, a major concern of the poem is beginnings—one's roots, birthplace, and homeland. Stanzas 1 and 2 centre on the pain of giving up, or being forced to give up, the comfort of a familiar environment and of feeling odd and out of place in a new one. In stanza 3, the final stanza, Duffy does an about-face, describing what it feels like to accept fate, to resign oneself to change and move on. The last line of the poem, however, presents an intriguing conundrum: has the speaker really learned to forgo originality, or has she not?

Theme: Identity Loss

"Originally" is a poem about a child fearful of losing her identity and the struggle she goes through in an attempt to retain it. The title itself indicates the significance of roots and of having definite origins, something the speaker worries she has lost by being forced to leave her native country at such a young age. The temperament within the family as a whole seems harmonious enough: The mother sings the father's name "to the turn of the wheels," and there is no mention of quarreling among the children. Instead, it is the idea of place, not people, that stirs feelings of apprehension and uncertainty. The boys cry because they know they have lost their familiar environment forever, and one of them leaves no room for doubting the source of his pain as he bawls, "Home, / Home."

All childhood is an emigration. Soon only a splinter, a “skelf” of the old culture remains. But the poem reaches beyond its own experience, acknowledging that whether we move or not, childhood involves leaving and loss, shedding of skins. The parents’ anxiety is highlighted in the simile “like a loose tooth”, and the snake imagery.

Notice how Duffy doesn’t just use end rhyme. Rhymes crop up in more unusual and unexpected places, suggesting, perhaps, continuity underneath change. In the last stanza, for instance, a series of assonantal, alliterative and full rhymes links key words together.

Anne Hathaway

The bed we loved in was a spinning world

of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seas

where we would dive for pearls. My lover's words

were shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses

on these lips; my body now a softer rhyme

to his, now echo, assonance; his touch

a verb dancing in the centre of a noun.

Some nights, I dreamed he'd written me, the bed

a page beneath his writer's hands. Romance

and drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.

In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,

dribbling their prose. My living laughing love -

I hold him in the casket of my widow's head

as he held me upon that next best bed.

Background to the Poem

This poem is taken from a collection by Carol Ann Duffy called “The World’s Wife”. In this collection, Duffy writes a number of dramatic monologues from the perspective of women who have been traditionally silenced in history, mythology and fiction. A dramatic monologue is a poem that is spoken by a character.

Anne Hathaway was the wife of William Shakespeare. She was nine years older than her husband, who married her when she was pregnant with their first child. They spent long periods of time apart; he went to London to work in the theatres whilst she stayed behind in Stratford upon Avon. When Shakespeare died, the only present he left his wife in his will was the second best bed in the house. Many scholars have seen this as confirmation that the couple had become estranged, and that this parting gift was meant to be a snub on Shakespeare’s part.

There has been much speculation about the great loves and muses in Shakespeare’s life but very few people think that Anne Hathaway was one of them. In the film Shakespeare in Love Anne Hathaway, whom we never see, is nothing more than an inconvenience to her husband, getting in the way of his search for a true muse who will inspire him to produce a masterpiece.

Carol Ann Duffy uses her poem to try and challenge these stereotypical assumptions about Shakespeare’s wife. She re-imagines the gift of the second best bed, not as a petty demonstration of marital discontent, but as the place where husband and wife experienced their most romantic and intimate moments. By doing so, she makes us question the relationship between Anne Hathaway and Shakespeare, and the wife’s contribution to the work of her husband.

Language and Imagery

Much of the imagery in this poem is sexual and allows us to see the relationship between husband and wife as one that is both spiritually and physically fulfilling. From being a mundane gift to a neglected spouse, the bed in Anne’s eyes is transformed into “a spinning world/of forests, castles, torchlight, cliff-tops, seas”. Duffy creates a magical world of romance and intrigue, with subtle nods towards key elements in Shakespeare’s own plays, such as the forest and castle in Macbeth or the sea of The Tempest. She creates a fantasy landscape where Shakespeare’s writing and his love for Anne are intertwined. Shakespeare’s words become “shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses/on these lips”. His words are stars up in the sky that everyone can see and admire, but his poetry is also something intimate that only Anne can experience and fully comprehend. For her, his works are something physical that she can touch, an experience of Shakespeare that nobody else can have.

Duffy further develops this notion by using the language of poetry to describe the lovemaking between Anne and Shakespeare. Sex and poetry are interwoven as his touch becomes “a verb dancing in the centre of a noun”. Anne imagines she is a product of her husband’s imagination, written into existence through their passionate exchanges, whilst the second best bed functions as “a page beneath his writer’s hands”. She is his ultimate muse, not just inspiring him to produce great works but actually becoming them. Rather than living in an atmosphere of hostility, the couple lives in a world of “romance and drama”, brought into being through their physical and emotional love for each other.

It was customary in Shakespeare’s time to give up the best bed in the house for guests. Anne imagines the guests in the next room, “dribbling their prose”, whilst herself and her husband create poetry and drama. Anne and Shakespeare inhabit a world full of senses, “played by touch, by scent, by taste”, whilst all the guests are able to do is dribble. The poem concludes with Anne claiming that all her memories of her husband are stored “in the casket of my widow’s head”. He is preserved not in a coffin or urn, not even in his writing, but in the thoughts inside Anne’s head, implying that the real William Shakespeare was a man that only his wife could ever truly know.

Poetic Devices

The poem is written in the form of a sonnet. Shakespeare’s most famous poems about love were written in this form, and Duffy’s choice here suggests that this poem is both a homage to Shakespeare’s romantic sonnet and at the same time a re-examining of the poet and playwright from a different angle. Whilst she keeps the rough outline of the sonnet, Duffy does not use the traditional rhyme scheme that all Shakespearian sonnets follow; ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. She keeps the rhyming couplet at the end, but otherwise her lines are only loosely joined together through assonance, for example “world” and “words”.

The lines are softly and subtly joined together, as if to echo the physical relationship between Anne and Shakespeare.

Duffy’s choice to subvert the form of the sonnet emphasises that these are the words of his wife and represent her own insight into her husband, an insight that cannot be shared or replicated by anyone else.

The poem is rich in metaphors, such as the “spinning world” of the bed or the “lover’s words” as “shooting stars”. The metaphors allow the world of Shakespeare’s poetry to intertwine with the physical reality of his marriage to Anne.

Enjambment is used to allow the lines to flow into each other, again implying the deep and intricate connection that existed between Anne and Shakespeare.

The sibilance in lines such as “shooting stars which fell to earth as kisses”, allow Duffy to evoke the sense of Shakespeare’s words sweeping across the sky in an arc that begins and ends with Anne.

The alliteration in “living laughing love” allows the words to dance across the page, suggesting the effervescence of the poetic relationship between the pair and is suitably juxtaposed with the dull “dribbling” of the prose of the guests.

The poem contains a great deal of verbs such as “dancing”, “dive”, “dozed” and “dribbling”. The verbs help to suggest that the couple’s relationship is an active and passionate one.

Themes

This is a poem about love and one that could usefully be compared to Shakespeare’s own sonnets on the topic, in particular Sonnet 130, where he compares his mistress to the standards normally required of women in poetry, and concludes that even though she is not the divine goddess other poets write about, to him she is just as beautiful in spite of, or maybe even because of, her human imperfections.

“Anne Hathaway” is about a marriage where the couple creates their own romance, one that does not involve conforming to other people’s expectations.

The poem allows the reader an insight into a relationship of mutual love and respect, where the couple creates a retreat from the rest of the world through poetry, a world which is symbolised by the second best bed.

The power of literature and the imagination is hence a central idea in the poem.

The poem creates significance around the bed which can only be truly understood by the couple themselves.

The poem is hence in one sense about reinventing material objects.

Another theme that runs through the poem is Anne’s loss of her husband and her genuine grief. A reader might perhaps expect Anne Hathaway to be angry and resentful, permanently overshadowed and side-lined by her husband, but Duffy’s Anne is only full of admiration and love for her husband, cherishing her precious memories that nobody else can share. Although Duffy gives Anne a voice, she actually subverts the reader’s expectations through the emotions expressed by the character. This is in contrast to another poem by Carol Ann Duffy, “Havisham”, where Miss Havisham from Great Expectations remains bitter and vengeful towards the lover who jilted her. There is no such anger or resentment in this poem, only a widow grieving a beloved husband.

“Anne Hathaway” allows us a different perspective of Shakespeare, a man sometimes represented as a philandering husband who put his writing above all else. We instead perceive him as a devoted husband, who saw writing not as something separate to marriage, but as something deeply embedded within it.

Another key theme in the poem is the true identity of William Shakespeare, a man about whom scholars still know surprisingly little. By presenting this poem in the voice of Anne Hathaway, Duffy wants us to appreciate that Anne was a central part of his life, as well as a passionate, creative and articulate woman in her own right.

Mrs Midas

It was late September. I'd just poured a glass of wine, begun

to unwind, while the vegetables cooked. The kitchen

filled with the smell of itself, relaxed, its steamy breath

gently blanching the windows. So I opened one,

then with my fingers wiped the other's glass like a brow.

He was standing under the pear tree snapping a twig.

Now the garden was long and the visibility poor, the way

the dark of the ground seems to drink the light of the sky,

but that twig in his hand was gold. And then he plucked

a pear from a branch - we grew Fondante d'Automne -

and it sat in his palm like a light bulb. On.

I thought to myself, Is he putting fairy lights in the tree?

He came into the house. The doorknobs gleamed.

He drew the blinds. You know the mind; I thought of

the Field of the Cloth of Gold and of Miss Macready.

He sat in that chair like a king on a burnished throne.

The look on his face was strange, wild, vain. I said,

What in the name of God is going on? He started to laugh.

I served up the meal. For starters, corn on the cob.

Within seconds he was spitting out the teeth of the rich.

He toyed with his spoon, then mine, then with the knives, the forks.

He asked where was the wine. I poured with shaking hand,

a fragrent, bone-dry white from Italy, then watched

as he picked up the glass, goblet, golden chalice, drank.

It was then that I started to scream. He sank to his knees.

After we had both calmed down, I finished the wine

on my own, hearing him out. I made him sit

on the other side of the room and keep his hands to himself.

I locked the cat in the cellar. I moved the phone.

The toilet I didn't mind. I couldn't believe my ears:

how he'd had a wish. Look, we all have wishes; granted.

But who has wishes granted? Him. Do you know about gold?

It feeds no one; aurum, soft, untarnishable; slakes

no thirst. He tried to light a cigarette; I gazed, entranced,

as the blue flame played on its luteous stem. At least,

I said, you'll be able to give up smoking for good.

Seperate beds. In fact, I put a chair against my door,

near petrified. He was below, turning the spare room

into the tomb of Tutankhamun. You see, we were passionate then,

in those halcyon days; unwrapping each other, rapidly,

like presents, fast food. But now I feared his honeyed embrace,

the kiss that would turn my lips to a work of art.

And who, when it comes to the crunch, can live

with a heart of gold? That night, I dreamt I bore

his child, its perfect ore limbs, its little tongue

like a precious latch, its amber eyes

holding their pupils like flies. My dream-milk

burned in my breasts. I woke to the streaming sun.

So he had to move out. We'd a caravan

in the wilds, in a glade of its own. I drove him up

under cover of dark. He sat in the back.

And then I came home, the women who married the fool

who wished for gold. At first I visited, odd times,

parking the car a good way off, then walking.

You knew you were getting close. Golden trout

on the grass. One day, a hare hung from a larch,

a beautiful lemon mistake. And then his footprints,

glistening next to the river's path. He was thin,

delirious; hearing, he said, the music of Pan

from the woods. Listen. That was the last straw.

What gets me now is not the idiocy or greed

but lack of thought for me. Pure selfishness. I sold

the contents of the house and came down here.

I think of him in certain lights, dawn, late afternoon,

and once a bowl of apples stopped me dead. I miss most,

even now, his hands, his warm hands on my skin, his touch.

Background to the Poem

Carol Ann Duffy's Mrs Midas is a feminist re-working of the legendary Greek Myth 'King Midas'. It is a dramatic monologue from the perspective of Midas' suffering wife 'Mrs Midas'. In previous variations of the King Midas story there is no mention of a wife. Carol Ann Duffy creates the fictional persona in order to bring to light a female perspective on the flaws within the male species.

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The ‘brown paper’ is the outer skin of the onion, the comparison also supports the ideas of a gift. The reference to the ‘moon’ is common in romantic poetry, it ‘promises light’ like the moon, and perhaps, like the optimism at the beginning of a new relationship.

The Onion

‘It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.

It promises light.’

‘It will blind you with tears

Like a lover.’

‘It will make your reflection

a wobbling photo of grief.’

‘Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,

possessive and faithful.’

‘Its platinum loops shrink to a

wedding-ring

if you like.’

‘Lethal

Its scent will cling to your fingers

Cling to your knife.’

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