Selected Poems

by Carol Ann Duffy

Offers a selection of works from five of the poet's previously published volumes, including "Standing Female Nude," "The Other Country," and "Selling Manhattan."

Genres: Poetry, Scotland, Fiction, 20th Century, LGBT, Poetry Plays, 21st Century

147 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1994

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

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

#Binge Reviewing my previous Reads #Poetry

Carol Ann Duffy’s *Selected Poems* is a remarkable compendium of her work, showcasing the range, wit, and emotional depth that has made her one of the most celebrated contemporary poets. Reading this collection feels like traversing a landscape of intimate confessions, societal observations, and playful linguistic experiments.

The poems are at once personal and universal, and the selected pieces highlight her mastery over voice, persona, and form.

A few standout poems immediately define the character of this collection. “Valentine” is quintessential Duffy: a subversion of traditional romantic tropes. Instead of the clichéd rose and chocolates, she offers an onion, its layers symbolising both love’s beauty and its capacity to sting. The poem’s plainspoken language, fused with startling metaphors, demonstrates her skill at taking the familiar and making it unsettlingly vivid. In comparison to classic love poetry—think Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s lush and ornamental verses—Duffy’s modern sensibility is stark, ironic, and unflinchingly honest.

Another pillar of this collection is *Mrs Lazarus*, a poem that dramatises grief and resurrection with elegance and theatricality. Here, Duffy inhabits a historical and biblical persona, giving voice to a woman often silenced by canonical texts. The poem’s lyrical intensity and dark humour recall some of Sylvia Plath’s confessional boldness, yet Duffy’s wit and linguistic agility set her apart. The interplay of voice, narrative, and rhythm creates a sense of immediacy that makes the emotional landscape feel lived-in rather than imagined.

Duffy’s engagement with gender and power is another recurring motif. In *Thetis*, she explores transformation, identity, and control, twisting Greek myth into a meditation on autonomy and desire. Similarly, *Little Red-Cap* from her *Fairy Tales* sequence revisits traditional stories, reframing them to foreground female agency and critique patriarchal structures. Compared to more didactic feminist poets, Duffy’s approach is subtle and often darkly playful: she demonstrates that critique can coexist with artistry, humour, and narrative pleasure.

The collection also showcases her prowess with formal versatility. Short, punchy lyrics like *Warming Her Pearls* contrast with longer narrative poems such as *Education for Leisure*, which builds tension and character through sparse, economical language. The tonal shifts—from quiet reflection to biting satire—demonstrate her ability to calibrate voice and form to subject matter. Reading Duffy alongside contemporaries such as Seamus Heaney or Carol Ann Duffy’s linguistic boldness resonates with the clarity and accessibility of Simon Armitage, but with a sharper female perspective and a consistent subversive edge.

Duffy’s use of persona poetry deserves particular note. Poems like *Mrs Midas* take well-known stories and retell them from a female viewpoint, using intimate, domestic language to humanise mythic or historical figures. This is comparable to Margaret Atwood’s *Siren Song* in its imaginative inhabitance of the other, yet Duffy’s strength lies in the lyricism, the rhythm, and her ability to blend pathos with irony in just a few carefully chosen lines. The combination of theatrical voice, emotional clarity, and linguistic precision allows the reader to inhabit both the speaker and the emotional universe she constructs.

A comparative lens also highlights her cultural acuity. Poems like *'Stealing' and 'Education for Leisure'* comment on societal norms and violence, revealing her keen observation of contemporary anxieties and moral ambiguities. Where William Blake or Wordsworth reflected on society from a moralistic or pastoral standpoint, Duffy confronts the modern urban landscape with moral ambiguity, psychological insight, and wit. The accessibility of her language masks profound complexity: even seemingly simple poems carry layers of irony, symbolism, and socio-political commentary.

Reading *Selected Poems* in 2019, I was struck by the emotional resonance of recurring themes: love, loss, transformation, power, and voice. Duffy’s work resonates with the immediacy of lived experience while maintaining a lyrical distance that invites reflection. The juxtaposition of tenderness and cruelty, humour and sorrow, and historical and contemporary makes the collection feel like a panorama of human consciousness.

In sum, *Selected Poems* is a testament to Carol Ann Duffy’s versatility, intelligence, and empathy. From intimate love poems to mythic retellings, from satirical commentaries to lyrical elegies, this collection presents her as a poet capable of capturing the breadth of contemporary human experience. For readers seeking poetry that is simultaneously accessible, witty, emotionally rich, and intellectually engaging, this volume remains an essential touchstone. It is a work that rewards slow reading, reflection, and multiple returns, each yielding new insights into language, identity, and the subtle art of observation.

Comparatively, when placed alongside the works of contemporaries like Simon Armitage, Seamus Heaney, and Margaret Atwood, Duffy’s voice is unmistakably her own: sharper, often darker, and persistently inquisitive about human desire, power, and the stories we tell ourselves. The collection proves that contemporary poetry can be both popular and profound—a rare balance that Duffy manages with grace and formidable skill.

[Rosa Jamali · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carol Ann Duffy's poetry's often a narrative piece but starts in a very intelligent way, in complete suspense, and like a riddle, she is a master of narrative techniques,...
By the way, is it possible to recreate myth without naming it, this has always been my question, through the imagery for instance or the whole text turns to a layer of intertextuality with what has already been existed in mythology? If anybody could help me out with this question?...

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

I quite liked a number of the poems collected here for their sentiments but in terms of poetic expression, Duffy does not compare well with many modern poets. Much of her work could be re-arranged into prose without the loss of anything - not the sign of a great poet. Disappointing for the current Poet Laureate.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection sticks with you in unexpected ways...

[Dain · Rating 1 out of 5]

Meh. One fantastic poem, "Valentine," and the rest were boring as shit. I can't believe I read the whole thing.

[Rachelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much of this I could take or leave, but some of it is definitely 5* (imo), especially Words, Wide Night and the entire collection Mean Time.

[Isobel :) shaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the poems are hard to wrap your head around sometimes a metaphor will skip over your head but with careful reading it was a moving book

[Anusha Poddar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Individualistic, observant and unabashedly feminine.

[Bex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think Duffy's poems either totally have me, or they don't, and I noticed that a lot reading this collection. That's not to say that they're bad at all, just either they're absolutely totally my cup of tea, or I'm a bit lost with them, and that's totally personal. Duffy is a brilliant writer regardless, and this is a wonderful collection all the same! (But I would totally recommend reading The World's Wife in it's entirety, what a banging book)

[Katie Karnehm-Esh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carol Ann Duffy is a singular, haunting poet. I listened to the audio book, which has the benefit of hearing her read her poems. I'm very grateful for the way she uses myth and other people's stories.

[Alexia Armstrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

An extraordinary compilation of Duffy's works, I was exposed to all her magnificent poems which I greatly enjoyed reading.

She submerges the reader in the lives of fascinating people, from giggling schoolgirls, to crisis refugees to vulnerable young women. Duffy penetrates the language to a whole new level, playing with it so skillfully that her poems are extremely entertaining and can be reread a number of times without ever having the same meaning.

I understand if the entire collection seems a bit daunting to embark upon, but I do recommend to at least check out my personal favourites:

War Photographer
Shooting Stars
Standing Female Nude
The Light Gatherer
Mrs Darwin

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like the Poet Laureate's work more than I did, but I didn't.

There are some lines that are moving, clever or funny, but mostly I felt I had to force my way through it to get to the end (which last, five-line poem, Mrs Darwin is one of the humorous and clever poems that I liked).

I can see that there is merit here but, given that this is a 'best of...', I don't think I'll be seeking out any more of Duffy's work as it doesn't seem to speak to me in the way that it clearly does to the awards panels and to the Queen.

[Adam Ralph · Rating 5 out of 5]

best 16th birthday present ever. succinct, precise, mesmerisingly vivid poetry. Duffy's vernacular drips with the female form, both bound and liberated.

[Aneira Hayward · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolute rubbish!!!!

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This selection includes poems from five of Carol Ann Duffy's previous collections, including: Standing Female Nude , Selling Manhattan , The Other Country , Mean Time , and The World's Wife ...

From Standing Female Nude (1985)...

There are not enough faces. Your own gapes back
at you on someone else, bu paler, then the moment
when you see the next one and forget yourself.

If must be dreams that make us different, must be
private cells inside a common skull.
One had the other's look and has another memory.

Despair stares out from tube-trains at itself
running on the platform for the closing door. Everyone
you meet is telling wordless barefaced truth.

Something the crowd yields one you put a name to,
snapping fiction into fact. Mostly your lover passes
in the rain and does not know you when you speak.

- I Remember Me, pg. 12

From Selling Manhattan (1987)...

The little people in the radio are picking on me
again. It is sunny, but they are going to make it
rain. I do not like their voices, they have voices
like cold tea with skin on. I go O O O.

The flowers are plastic. There is all dust
on the petals. I go Ugh. Real flowers die,
bu at least they are a comfort to us all.
I know them by name, listen. Rose. Tulip. Lily.

I live inside someone else's head. He hears me
with his stethoscope, so it is no use
sneaking home at five o'clock to his nice house
because I am in his ear going Breathe Breathe.

I might take my eye out and swallow it
to bring some attention to myself. Winston did.
His name was in the paper. For the time being
I make noises to annoy them and when I go
BASTARDS.

- And How Are We Today?, pg. 42

From The Other Country (1990)...

I worry about you travelling in those mystical machines.
Every day people fall from the clouds, dead.
Breathe in and out and in and out easy.
Safety, safely, safe home.

Your photograph is in the fridge, smiles when the light comes on.
All the time people are burnt in the pubic places.
Rest where the cool trees drop to a gentle shade.
Safety, safely, safe home.

Don't lie down on the sands where the hole in the sky is.
Too many people being gnawed to shreds.
Send me your voice however it comes across oceans.
Safety, safely, safe home.

The loveless men and homeless boys are out there and angry.
Nightly people end their lives in the shortcut.
Walk in the light, steadily hurry toward me.
Safety, safely, safe home. (Who loves you?)
Safety, safely, safe home.

- Who Loves You, pg. 84

From Mean Time (1993)...

The clocks slid back an hour
and stole light from my life
as I walked through the wrong part of town,
mourning our love.

And, of course, unmendable rain
fell to the bleak streets
where I felt my heart gnaw
at all our mistakes.

If the darkening sky could lift
more than one hour from this day
there are words I would never have said
nor have heard you say.

But we will be dead, as we know,
beyond all light.
These are the shortened dThe World's Wifeays
and the endless nights.

- Mean Time, pg. 126

From The World's Wife (1999)...

7 April 1852
Went to the Zoo.
I said to Him -
Soemthing about the Chimpanzee over there reminds me of you.

- Mrs Darwin, pg. 147

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I could start another debate about what constitutes art or literature, but I have no idea how to define something so elusive, and neither, I suspect, do you, dear reader. In relation to the works of Carol Ann Duffy, I am not even sure I can explain what constitutes poetry.

The poetry of Duffy is so different from the works of say, Shakespeare or Tennyson, that it is hard to see how we can claim that both belong under the category of poetry. To quote one Goodreads review of this book: “Much of her work could be re-arranged into prose without the loss of anything - not the sign of a great poet”.

While I am not sure I agree with this opinion, I understand where the reviewer is coming from. Many of the poems here do not rhyme, and when they do, there is no sense of metre. Poetry need not rhyme, but without a fixed pattern, it does not constitute blank verse either. I am not even sure if the traditional methods such as alliteration, assonance, onomatopoeia etc widely apply here.

Does that make Duffy’s compositions into prose, but written briefly and with line spacings mid-sentence to make it look like poetry? I think not. Some of those methods are present, along with metaphor and imagery (not the exclusive preserve of poetry, I admit).

Perhaps what makes it poetry is that it has a style of its own, and that it concentrates its meaning intensely into a short work, unlike the more expansive nature of prose. Most of the poems here are fairly short, running for one or two pages. Of course I hit on another problem here, since some poems are very long indeed, and not at all concentrated. Think of Paradise Lost or The Faerie Queene.

So I suppose we have to stop worrying about whether Duffy is a poet or not, and just take it at face value. As I said, she does have her own style. Duffy eschews excessively literary words, and expresses herself plainly. That might explain why she was chosen to be Poet Laureate for ten years. Her sentences are often short and staccato. If there is a rhythm to her poetry, it lies in this.

Reading Duffy’s poetry, I did not feel that it sings to me, in the way that I like poetry to do. I remember few phrases in the poems either, but that might be due to my coming to Duffy for the first time. The most beautiful expression I remember is this one: “For I am in love with you/and this is what it is like or what it is like in words”.

That said, I did rather enjoy reading Duffy’s poetry. As a Poet Laureate we might expect Duffy to be a safe poet, but she is unconventional in ways that cause her to reflect the age in which she lives. Duffy is a lesbian, and writes about sex from this angle. She is an atheist, but does show the influence of religion in her works. One of her poems is called Prayer.

The subject matter of Duffy’s poetry also captures contemporary concerns well. I suppose a conservative would call her ‘woke’ or something silly, but we might expect a writer from an LGBT background to be more sensitive to others.

The poems are feministic. Duffy’s final poems in this volume are humorous stories taken from the viewpoint of a supposed wife to a famous fictional character or writer. Reviewers seem to like these poems best. I preferred the other poems, but didn't mind these either.

Duffy talks about violence and bigotry. She puts across the point of view of immigrants arriving in Britain, something much needed at the present time. Indeed Duffy’s greatest strength is her ability to enter into the viewpoints of widely different individuals, sometimes presenting the thoughts of several people in one poem.

Not all the poems here are political of course. Some are love poems. Some express anger about infidelities. Some are merely humorous. Some describe her past life, especially her experiences in education.

I may need to return to Duffy at a later date to see what I think of her after reflection, or with greater familiarity with her work. As it is, I think this is certainly an impressive selection.

[lucy snow · Rating 3 out of 5]

i have come to realise that the poems i love from carol ann duffy are her love poems. and this collection did not have enough of them for my liking.

the poems that stand out for me are words, wide night, girlfriends, and model village. the first one, especially when read alongside miles away, was the most impactful for me.

as always i enjoyed duffy's poetic voice, but these poems didn't particularly engage me. i found myself skimming which is never a good sign.

the little section from the world's wife wasn't even my favourite poems from that collection!

but i am glad to have read a wider selection of her work - adding to my already growing pile of her collections including feminine gospels, the world's wife and rapture.

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wide-ranging collection that is maybe best when Duffy is looking back to her childhood (Litany) or inhabiting dark characters (Psychopath). Other favourites include Mrs Midas, Making Money, Stealing, Model Village, Stafford Afternoons, Telegrams and In Mrs Tilscher's Class (which includes the great image 'a skittle of milk').

Strangely three poems were left out that are now Scottish N5 set texts: Photographer, Havisham and Anne Hathaway.

[Carolyn Drake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taken from several of Duffy's poetry collections, not all of the entries here hit the sweet spot, but there are some inventive, wild and imaginative poems. The last section, containing six poems from the poet's 1999 collection The World's Wife were the highlight for me. I read her funny, beautiful and sharp-eyed look at the unexamined and unheralded women in the lives of famous and infamous mythical and real life men for the first time a couple of years ago, and this just made me want to pick it up again.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Duffy's poems are really interesting and seems to go deeper and I was not expecting to like it as much as I did.

[Judy Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for class; but not bad. But didn’t really connect with the poetry. More of an appreciation of good writing.

[Gina · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first half of this book. Then it became a bit repetitive in ideas and presentations of ideas later on.

[BOOK BOOKS]

CAROL ANN DUFFY IS GAY? NOBODY TELLS ME ANYTHING.

I READ LITTLE RED CAP IN HIGH SCHOOL AND THEN I READ WARMING HER PEARLS A FEW YEARS AGO BUT I THINK I THOUGHT I MUST BE MISUNDERSTANDING IT. /o\

[Marte · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved one of the poems, liked a few more and really disliked the rest

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This selection of poems left me wanting to know more about the person behind the voice and to read more of her poetry.

[Cainneach Rua · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good quantity of poems and several nice ones which are easy to dissect and appreciate

[fliss heywood · Rating 2 out of 5]

'everyone you meet is telling wordless barefaced truths

[erris · Rating 4 out of 5]

favourite poems: oppenheim's cup and saucer, warming her pearls, girlfriends, nostalgia.
not as good as Rapture. the last two sections though had some clear themes that made them all work really well together.
i really love lesbian poetry <3

[el ⁎༄ · Rating 5 out of 5]

gorgeous. jarring.

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bookclub choice for November. This is our first book of poetry so it will be interesting to see what all the members think. I quite enjoyed the poems, some more than others. Some quite suggestive! Really liked the section - the world’s wife - very clever, witty and on point. Behind every great man is a great woman!
We were asked to choose a favourite which is tricky. I’ve narrowed it down to 3 - Head of English, Selling Manhattan & Mrs Midas.
My one gripe is for how the book is printed - so many of the shorter poems finished at the top of the next page. Was this to pad out the book? Would be nicer to read the complete poem on 1 page where possible.