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9780571199952

The World's Wife Poems

by
  • ISBN13:

    9780571199952

  • ISBN10:

    057119995X

  • Edition: Reprint
  • Format: Paperback
  • Copyright: 2001-04-09
  • Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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Summary

Be terrified. It's you I love, perfect man, Greek God, my own; but I know you'll go, betray me, stray from home. So better by far for me if you were stone. --from "Medusa" Stunningly original and haunting, the voices of Mrs. Midas, Queen Kong, and Frau Freud, to say nothing of the Devil's Wife herself, startle us with their wit, imagination, and incisiveness in this collection of poems written from the perspectives of the wives, sisters, or girlfris of famous -- and infamous -- male personages. Carol Ann Duffy is a master at drawing on myth and history, then subverting them in a vivid and surprising way to create poems that have the pull of the past and the crack of the contemporary.

Author Biography

Carol Ann Duffy has published four highly praised collections of poetry. Her last, Mean Time, won the Forward Poetry Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Prize. She lives in Manchester, England.

Table of Contents

Little Red-Cap
3(2)
Thetis
5(2)
Queen Herod
7(4)
Mrs Midas
11(3)
from Mrs Tiresias
14(4)
Pilate's Wife
18(1)
Mrs Aesop
19(1)
Mrs Darwin
20(1)
Mrs Sisyphus
21(2)
Mrs Faust
23(5)
Delilah
28(2)
Anne Hathaway
30(1)
Queen Kong
31(3)
Mrs Quasimodo
34(6)
Medusa
40(2)
The Devil's Wife
42(5)
Circe
47(2)
Mrs Lazarus
49(2)
Pygmalion's Bride
51(2)
Mrs Rip Van Winkle
53(1)
Mrs Icarus
54(1)
Frau Freud
55(1)
Salome
56(2)
Eurydice
58(5)
The Kray Sisters
63(3)
Elvis's Twin Sister
66(2)
Pope Joan
68(2)
Penelope
70(2)
Mrs Beast
72(4)
Demeter
76(3)
Permissions Acknowledgements 79

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What is included with this book?

The New copy of this book will include any supplemental materials advertised. Please check the title of the book to determine if it should include any access cards, study guides, lab manuals, CDs, etc.

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Excerpts


Chapter One

Little Red-Cap

At childhood's end, the houses petered out

into playing fields, the factory, allotments

kept, like mistresses, by kneeling married men,

the silent railway line, the hermit's caravan,

till you came at last to the edge of the woods.

It was there that I first clapped eyes on the wolf.

He stood in a clearing, reading his verse out loud

in his wolfy drawl, a paperback in his hairy paw,

red wine staining his bearded jaw. What big ears

he had! What big eyes he had! What teeth!

In the interval, I made quite sure he spotted me,

sweet sixteen, never been, babe, waif, and bought me a drink,

my first. You might ask why. Here's why. Poetry.

The wolf, I knew, would lead me deep into the woods,

away from home, to a dark tangled thorny place

lit by the eyes of owls. I crawled in his wake,

my stockings ripped to shreds, scraps of red from my blazer

snagged on twig and branch, murder clues. I lost both shoes

but got there, wolf's lair, better beware. Lesson one that

    night,

breath of the wolf in my ear, was the love poem.

I clung till dawn to his thrashing fur, for

what little girl doesn't dearly love a wolf?

Then I slid from between his heavy matted paws

and went in search of a living bird -- white dove --

which flew, straight, from my hands to his open mouth.

One bite, dead. How nice, breakfast in bed, he said,

licking his chops. As soon as he slept, I crept to the back

of the lair, where a whole wall was crimson, gold, aglow with

    books.

Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head,

warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood.

But then I was young -- and it took ten years

in the woods to tell that a mushroom

stoppers the mouth of a buried corpse, that birds

are the uttered thought of trees, that a greying wolf

howls the same old song at the moon, year in, year out,

season after season, same rhyme, same reason. I took an axe

to a willow to see how it wept. I took an axe to a salmon

to see how it leapt. I took an axe to the wolf

as he slept, one chop, scrotum to throat, and saw

the glistening, virgin white of my grandmother's bones.

I filled his old belly with stones. I stitched him up.

Out of the forest I come with my flowers, singing, all alone.

Thetis

I shrank myself

to the size of a bird in the hand

of a man.

Sweet, sweet, was the small song

that I sang,

till I felt the squeeze of his fist.

Then I did this:

shouldered the cross of an albatross

up the hill of the sky.

Why? To follow a ship.

But I felt my wings

clipped by the squint of a crossbow's eye.

So I shopped for a suitable shape.

Size 8. Snake.

Big Mistake.

Coiled in my charmer's lap,

I felt the grasp of his strangler's clasp

at my nape.

Next I was roar, claw, 50 lb paw,

jungle-floored, meateater, raw,

a zebra's gore

in my lower jaw.

But my gold eye saw

the guy in the grass with the gun. Twelve-bore.

I sank through the floor of the earth

to swim in the sea.

Mermaid, me, big fish, eel, dolphin,

whale, the ocean's opera singer.

Over the waves the fisherman came

with his hook and his line and his sinker.

I changed my tune

to racoon, skunk, stoat,

to weasel, ferret, bat, mink, rat.

The taxidermist sharpened his knives.

I smelled the stink of formaldehyde.

Stuff that.

I was wind, I was gas,

I was all hot air, trailed

clouds for hair.

I scrawled my name with a hurricane,

when out of the blue

roared a fighter plane.

Then my tongue was flame

and my kisses burned,

but the groom wore asbestos.

So I changed, I learned,

turned inside out -- or that's

how it felt when the child burst out.

Queen Herod

Ice in the trees.

Three Queens at the Palace gates,

dressed in furs, accented;

their several sweating, panting beasts,

laden for a long, hard trek,

following the guide and boy to the stables;

courteous, confident; oh, and with gifts

for the King and Queen of here -- Herod, me --

in exchange for sunken baths, curtained beds,

fruit, the best of meat and wine,

dancers, music, talk --

as it turned out to be,

with everyone fast asleep, save me,

those vivid three --

till bitter dawn.

They were wise. Older than I.

They knew what they knew.

Once drunken Herod's head went back,

they asked to see her,

fast asleep in her crib,

my little child.

Silver and gold,

the loose change of herself,

glowed in the soft bowl of her face.

Grace , said the tallest Queen.

Strength , said the Queen with the hennaed hands.

The black Queen

made a tiny starfish of my daughter's fist,

said Happiness ; then stared at me,

Queen to Queen, with insolent lust.

Watch, they said, for a star in the East --

a new star

pierced through the night like a nail

It means he's here, alive, new-born.

Who? Him. The Husband. Hero. Hunk.

The Boy Next Door. The Paramour. TheJe t'adore.

The Marrying Kind. Adulterer. Bigamist.

The Wolf. The Rip. The Rake. The Rat.

The Heartbreaker. The Ladykiller. Mr Right.

My baby stirred,

suckled the empty air for milk,

till I knelt

and the black Queen scooped out my breast,

the left, guiding it down

to the infant's mouth.

No man , I swore,

will make her shed one tear.

A peacock screamed outside.

Afterwards, it seemed like a dream.

The pungent camels

kneeling in the snow,

the guide's rough shout

as he clapped his leather gloves,

hawked, spat, snatched

the smoky jug of mead

from the chittering maid --

she was twelve, thirteen.

I watched each turbaned Queen

rise like a god on the back of her beast.

And splayed that night

below Herod's fusty bulk,

I saw the fierce eyes of the black Queen

flash again, felt her urgent warnings scald

my ear. Watch for a star, a star.

It means he's here ...

Some swaggering lad to break her heart,

some wincing Prince to take her name away

and give a ring, a nothing, nowt in gold.

I sent for the Chief of Staff,

a mountain man

with a red scar, like a tick

to the mean stare of his eye.

Take men and horses,

knives, swords, cutlasses.

Ride East from here

and kill each mother's son.

Do it. Spare not one.

The midnight hour. The chattering stars

shivered in a nervous sky.

Orion to the South

who knew the score, who'd seen,

not seen, then seen it all before;

the yapping Dog Star at his heels.

High up in the West

a studded, diamond W.

And then, as prophesied,

blatant, brazen, buoyant in the East --

and blue --

The Boyfriend's Star.

We do our best,

we Queens, we mothers,

mothers of Queens.

We wade through blood

for our sleeping girls.

We have daggers for eyes.

Behind our lullabies,

the hooves of terrible horses

thunder and drum.

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 a shaking hand,

a fragrant, 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'd 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.

Separate 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 woman 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.

from Mrs Tiresias

All I know is this:

he went out for his walk a man

and came home female.

Out the back gate with his stick,

the dog;

wearing his gardening kecks,

an open-necked shirt,

and a jacket in Harris tweed I'd patched at the elbows myself.

Whistling.

He liked to hear

the first cuckoo of spring

then write to The Times .

I'd usually heard it

days before him

but I never let on.

I'd heard one that morning

while he was asleep;

just as I heard,

at about 6 p.m.,

a faint sneer of thunder up in the woods

and felt

a sudden heat

at the back of my knees.

He was late getting back.

I was brushing my hair at the mirror

and running a bath

when a face

swam into view

next to my own.

The eyes were the same.

But in the shocking V of the shirt were breasts.

When he uttered my name in his woman's voice I passed out.

* * *

Life has to go on.

I put it about that he was a twin

and this was his sister

come down to live

while he himself

was working abroad.

And at first I tried to be kind;

blow-drying his hair till he learnt to do it himself,

lending him clothes till he started to shop for his own,

sisterly, holding his soft new shape in my arms all night.

Then he started his period.

One week in bed.

Two doctors in.

Three painkillers four times a day.

And later

a letter

to the powers that be

demanding full-paid menstrual leave twelve weeks per year.

I see him still,

his selfish pale face peering at the moon

through the bathroom window.

The curse , he said, the curse .

Don't kiss me in public ,

he snapped the next day,

I don't want folk getting the wrong idea .

It got worse.

* * *

After the split I would glimpse him

out and about,

entering glitzy restaurants

on the arms of powerful men --

though I knew for sure

there'd be nothing of that

going on

if he had his way --

or on TV

telling the women out there

how, as a woman himself,

he knew how we felt.

His flirt's smile.

The one thing he never got right

was the voice.

A cling peach slithering out from its tin.

I gritted my teeth.

* * *

And this is my lover , I said,

the one time we met

at a glittering ball

under the lights,

among tinkling glass,

and watched the way he stared

at her violet eyes,

at the blaze of her skin,

at the slow caress of her hand on the back of my neck;

and saw him picture

her bite,

her bite at the fruit of my lips,

and hear

my red wet cry in the night

as she shook his hand

saying How do you do ;

and I noticed then his hands, her hands,

the clash of their sparkling rings and their painted nails.

Pilate's Wife

Firstly, his hands -- a woman's. Softer than mine,

with pearly nails, like shells from Galilee.

Indolent hands. Camp hands that clapped for grapes.

Their pale, mothy touch made me flinch. Pontius.

I longed for Rome, home, someone else. When the Nazarene

entered Jerusalem, my maid and I crept out,

bored stiff, disguised, and joined the frenzied crowd.

I tripped, clutched the bridle of an ass, looked up

and there he was. His face? Ugly. Talented.

He looked at me. I mean he looked at me . My God.

His eyes were eyes to die for. Then he was gone,

his rough men shouldering a pathway to the gates.

The night before his trial, I dreamt of him.

His brown hands touched me. Then it hurt.

Then blood. I saw that each tough palm was skewered

by a nail. I woke up, sweating, sexual, terrified.

Leave him alone . I sent a warning note, then quickly dressed.

When I arrived, the Nazarene was crowned with thorns.

The crowd was baying for Barabbas. Pilate saw me,

looked away, then carefully turned up his sleeves

and slowly washed his useless, perfumed hands.

They seized the prophet then and dragged him out,

up to the Place of Skulls. My maid knows all the rest.

Was he God? Of course not. Pilate believed he was.

Mrs Aesop

By Christ, he could bore for Purgatory. He was small,

didn't prepossess. So he tried to impress. Dead men,

Mrs Aesop , he'd say, tell no tales . Well, let me tell you now

that the bird in his hand shat on his sleeve,

never mind the two worth less in the bush. Tedious.

Going out was worst. He'd stand at our gate, look, then leap;

scour the hedgerows for a shy mouse, the fields

for a sly fox, the sky for one particular swallow

that couldn't make a summer. The jackdaw, according to

   him,

envied the eagle. Donkeys would, on the whole, prefer to be

   lions.

On one appalling evening stroll, we passed an old hare

snoozing in a ditch -- he stopped and made a note --

and then, about a mile further on, a tortoise, somebody's pet,

creeping, slow as marriage, up the road. Slow

but certain, Mrs Aesop, wins the race. Asshole.

What race? What sour grapes? What silk purse,

sow's ear, dog in a manger, what big fish? Some days

I could barely keep awake as the story droned on

towards the moral of itself. Action, Mrs A., speaks louder

than words. And that's another thing, the sex

was diabolical. I gave him a fable one night

about a little cock that wouldn't crow, a razor-sharp axe

with a heart blacker than the pot that called the kettle.

I'll cut off your tail, all right , I said, to save my face .

That shut him up. I laughed last, longest.

Mrs Darwin

    7 April 1852 .

Went to the Zoo.

I said to Him --

Something about that Chimpanzee over there reminds me of

    you.

Copyright © 1999 Carol Ann Duffy. All rights reserved.

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