Feminine Gospels Poems [Paperback]

A new collection of poems ranging over the experience of womenhistorical and imagined, real-life and larger than lifefrom the award-winning author ofThe 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 volumeThe 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.

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 . . . Duffy never settles for mere cleverness. Her poetic technique is sure and subtle. Patricia Monaghan, Booklist

Carol Ann Duffy is at once lyrical and subversive, delightful and dangerous. No other poet I know occupies a place between such apparent contradictions. Billy Collins, Poet Laureate

[Duffy writes] with lyric intensity . . . She moves through the lives she invents with a kind of casual confidence. Elaine Feinstein, The Guardian (London)

Beautiful . . .Feminine Gospelsshows its author still exploring, testing her imaginative powers and masterly way with language. Lesley Duncan, The Herald (Glasgow)

[Carol Ann Duffy's] work has a kind of muscular, lyrical intensity, yet is always rooted in the muck and mulch of real experils