A winner of the Costa Book Award, "beautiful and moving poetry for the real world" (The Guardian)
The Bees is Carol Ann Duffy's first collection of new poems as British poet laureate, and the much anticipated successor to the T. S. Eliot Prize–winning Rapture. After the intimate focus of the earlier book, The Bees finds Duffy using her full poetic range: there are drinking songs, love poems, poems to the weather, and poems of political anger. There are elegies, too, for beloved friends and—most movingly—for the poet's mother. As Duffy's voice rises in this collection, her music intensifies, and every poem patterns itself into song.
Woven into and weaving through the book is its presiding spirit: the bee. Sometimes the bee is Duffy's subject, sometimes it strays into the poem or hovers at its edge—and the reader soon begins to anticipate its appearance. In the end, Duffy's point is clear: the bee symbolizes what we have left of grace in the world, and what is most precious and necessary for us to protect. The Bees is Duffy's clearest affirmation yet of her belief in the poem as "secular prayer," as the means by which we remind ourselves of what is most worthy of our attention and concern, our passion and our praise.
A winner of the Costa Book Award, "beautiful and moving poetry for the real world" (The Guardian)
The Bees is Carol Ann Duffy's first collection of new poems as British poet laureate, and the much anticipated successor to the T. S. Eliot Prize–winning Rapture. After the intimate focus of the earlier book, The Bees finds Duffy using her full poetic range: there are drinking songs, love poems, poems to the weather, and poems of political anger. There are elegies, too, for beloved friends and—most movingly—for the poet's mother. As Duffy's voice rises in this collection, her music intensifies, and every poem patterns itself into song.
Woven into and weaving through the book is its presiding spirit: the bee. Sometimes the bee is Duffy's subject, sometimes it strays into the poem or hovers at its edge—and the reader soon begins to anticipate its appearance. In the end, Duffy's point is clear: the bee symbolizes what we have left of grace in the world, and what is most precious and necessary for us to protect. The Bees is Duffy's clearest affirmation yet of her belief in the poem as "secular prayer," as the means by which we remind ourselves of what is most worthy of our attention and concern, our passion and our praise.
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Overview
A winner of the Costa Book Award, "beautiful and moving poetry for the real world" (The Guardian)
The Bees is Carol Ann Duffy's first collection of new poems as British poet laureate, and the much anticipated successor to the T. S. Eliot Prize–winning Rapture. After the intimate focus of the earlier book, The Bees finds Duffy using her full poetic range: there are drinking songs, love poems, poems to the weather, and poems of political anger. There are elegies, too, for beloved friends and—most movingly—for the poet's mother. As Duffy's voice rises in this collection, her music intensifies, and every poem patterns itself into song.
Woven into and weaving through the book is its presiding spirit: the bee. Sometimes the bee is Duffy's subject, sometimes it strays into the poem or hovers at its edge—and the reader soon begins to anticipate its appearance. In the end, Duffy's point is clear: the bee symbolizes what we have left of grace in the world, and what is most precious and necessary for us to protect. The Bees is Duffy's clearest affirmation yet of her belief in the poem as "secular prayer," as the means by which we remind ourselves of what is most worthy of our attention and concern, our passion and our praise.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781466895850 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
| Publication date: | 05/03/2016 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 96 |
| File size: | 673 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
The Bees
By Carol Ann Duffy
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Copyright © 2011 Carol Ann DuffyAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4668-9585-0
CHAPTER 1
Bees
Here are my bees,
brazen, blurs on paper,
besotted; buzzwords, dancing
their flawless, airy maps.
Been deep, my poet bees,
in the parts of flowers,
in daffodil, thistle, rose, even
the golden lotus; so glide,
gilded, glad, golden, thus –
wise – and know of us:
how your scent pervades
my shadowed, busy heart,
and honey is art.
Last Post
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud ...
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home –
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.
Dulce – No – Decorum – No – Pro patria mori.
You walk away.
You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too –
Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert –
and light a cigarette.
There's coffee in the square,
warm French bread,
and all those thousands dead
are shaking dried mud from their hair
and queueing up for home. Freshly alive,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.
You lean against a wall,
your several million lives still possible
and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
then it would.
Echo
I think I was searching for treasures or stones
in the clearest of pools
when your face ...
when your face,
like the moon in a well
where I might wish ...
might well wish
for the iced fire of your kiss;
only on water my lips, where your face ...
where your face was reflected, lovely,
not really there when I turned
to look behind at the emptying air ...
the emptying air.
Scheherazade
Dumb was as good as dead;
better to utter.
Inside a bottle, a genie.
Abracadabra.
Words were a silver thread
stitching the night.
The first story I said
led to the light.
Fact was in black and white;
fiction was colour.
Inside a dragon, a jewel.
Abracadabra.
A magic carpet took flight,
bearing a girl.
The hand of a Queen shut tight
over a pearl.
Imagination was world;
clever to chatter.
Inside a she-mule, a princess.
Abracadabra.
A golden sword was hurled
into a cloud.
A dead woman unfurled
out of a shroud.
A fable spoken aloud
kindled another.
Inside a virgin, a lover.
Abracadabra.
Forty thieves in a crowd,
bearded and bold.
A lamp rubbed by a lad
turning to gold.
Talking lips don't grow cold;
babble and jabber.
Inside a beehive, a fortune.
Abracadabra.
What was lost was held
inside a tale.
The tall stories I told
utterly real.
Inside a marriage, a gaol;
better to vanish.
Inside a mirror, an ogre;
better to banish.
A thousand and one tales;
weeping and laughter.
Only the silent fail.
Abracadabra.
Big Ask
What was it Sisyphus pushed up the hill?
I wouldn't call it a rock.
Will you solemnly swear on the Bible?
I couldn't swear on a book.
With which piece did you capture the castle?
I shouldn't hazard a rook.
When did the President give you the date?
Nothing to do with Barack!
Were 1200 targets marked on a chart?
Nothing was circled in black.
On what was the prisoner stripped and stretched?
Nothing resembling a rack.
Guantánamo Bay – how many detained?
How many grains in a sack?
Extraordinary Rendition – give me some names.
How many cards in a pack?
Sexing the Dossier – name of the game?
Poker. Gin Rummy. Blackjack.
Who planned the deployment of shock and awe?
I didn't back the attack.
Inside the Mosque, please describe what you saw.
I couldn't see through the smoke.
Your estimate of the cost of the War?
I had no brief to keep track.
Where was Saddam when they found him at last?
Maybe holed under a shack.
What happened to him once they'd kicked his ass?
Maybe he swung from the neck.
The WMD ... you found the stash?
Well, maybe not in Iraq.
Ariel
Where the bee sucks,
neonicotinoid insecticides
in a cowslip's bell lie,
in fields purple with lavender,
yellow with rape,
and on the sunflower's upturned face;
on land monotonous with cereals and grain,
merrily,
merrily;
sour in the soil,
sheathing the seed, systemic
in the plants and crops,
the million acres to be ploughed,
seething in the orchards now,
under the blossom
that hangs
on the bough.
Politics
How it makes your face a stone
that aches to weep, your heart a fist,
clenched or thumping, your tongue
an iron latch with no door; your right hand
a gauntlet, a glove-puppet the left, your laugh
a dry leaf twitching in the wind, your desert island discs
hiss hiss hiss, the words on your lips dice
that throw no six.
How it takes the breath
away, the piss, your kiss a dropped pound coin,
your promises latin, feedback, static, gibberish,
your hair a wig, your gait a plankwalk. How it says
politics – to your education, fairness, health; shouts
Politics! – to your industry, investment, wealth; roars, to your
conscience, moral compass, truth, POLITICS POLITICS.
The Falling Soldier
after the photograph by Robert Capa
A flop back for a kip in the sun,
dropping the gun,
or a trip on a stone to send you
arse over tip
with a yelp and a curse?
No; worse. The shadow you cast
as you fall
is the start of a shallow grave.
They give medals, though,
to the grieving partners, mothers, daughters,
sons of the brave.
A breakdance to amuse your mates,
give them a laugh,
a rock'n'roll mime, Elvis time,
pretending the rifle's
just a guitar?
Worse by far. The shadow you shed
as you fall
is, brother, your soul.
They wrap you up in the flag, though,
blow a tune on a bugle before they lower you
into the hole.
A slide down a hill, your head thrown back,
daft as a boy,
and the rifle chucked away to the side
in a moment of joy,
an outburst?
Much worse. The shadow you throw
as you fall
is the shadow of death.
The camera, though,
has caught you forever and captured forever
your final breath.
Mrs Schofield's GCSE
You must prepare your bosom for his knife,
said Portia to Antonio in which
of Shakespeare's Comedies? Who killed his wife,
insane with jealousy? And which Scots witch
knew Something wicked this way comes? Who said
Is this a dagger which I see? Which Tragedy?
Whose blade was drawn which led to Tybalt's death?
To whom did dying Caesar say Et tu? And why?
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark – do you
know what this means? Explain how poetry
pursues the human like the smitten moon
above the weeping, laughing earth; how we
make prayers of it. Nothing will come of nothing:
speak again. Said by which King? You may begin.
Poetry
I couldn't see Guinness
and not envisage a nun;
a gun, a finger and thumb;
midges, blether, scribble, scrum.
A crescent moon, boomerang, smirk,
bone; or full, a shield, a stalker,
a stone. I couldn't see woods
for the names of trees – sycamore,
yew, birch, beech –
or bees
without imagining music scored
on the air – nor pass a nun
without calling to mind a pint of one, stout,
untouched, on a bar at the Angelus.
Achilles
Myth's river – where his mother dipped him,
fished him, a slippery golden boy –
flowed on, his name on its lips.
Without him, it was prophesied,
they would not take Troy.
Women hid him, concealed him in girls' sarongs;
days of sweetmeats, spices, silver song ...
but when Odysseus came,
with an athlete's build, a sword and a shield,
he followed him to the battlefield,
the crowd's roar,
and it was sport, not war,
his charmed foot on the ball ...
but then his heel, his heel, his heel ...
The Shirt
Afterwards, I found him alone at the bar
and asked him what went wrong. It's the shirt,
he said. When I pull it on it hangs on my back
like a shroud, or a poisoned jerkin from Grimm
seeping its curse onto my skin, the worst tattoo.
I shower and shave before I shrug on the shirt,
smell like a dream; but the shirt sours my scent
with the sweat and stink of fear. It's got my number.
I poured him another shot. Speak on, my son.He did.
I've wanted to sport the shirt since I was a kid,
but now when I do it makes me sick, weak, paranoid.
All night above the team hotel, the moon is the ball
in a penalty kick. Tens of thousands of fierce stars
are booing me. A screech owl is the referee.
The wind's a crowd, forty years long, bawling a filthy song
about my Wag. It's the bloody shirt!He started to blub
like a big girl's blouse and I felt a fleeting pity.
Don't cry,I said, at the end of the day you'll be stiff
in a shirt of solid gold, shining for City.
Oxfam
A silvery, pale-blue satin tie, freshwater in sunlight, 50p.
Charlotte Rhead, hand-painted oval bowl, circa 1930, perfect
for apples, pears, oranges a child's hand takes without
a second thought, £80. Rows of boots marking time, £4.
Shoes like history lessons, £1.99. That jug, 30p, to fill with milk.
That mirror, £5, to look yourself in the eye. A commemoration
plate, 23 July 1986, marriage of HRH Prince Andrew
to Miss Sarah Ferguson, £2.99, size of a landmine.
Rare 1st ed. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, signed
by the author – like magic, a new school – £9000. Pen, 10p.
Pair of spectacles (longsight) £3. P/b Fieldnotes from a Catastrophe:
Report on Climate Change by Elizabeth Kolbert (hindsight) 40p.
Jade earrings and necklace, somewhere a mother, £20, brand new
gentleman's suit, somewhere a brother, £30. All Fairtrade.
The Female Husband
Having been, in my youth, a pirate
with cutlass and parrot, a gobful of bad words
yelled at the salty air to curse a cur to the end
of a plank; having jumped ship
in a moonstruck port,
opened an evil bar – a silver coin for a full flask,
a gold coin for don't ask – and boozed and bragged
with losers and hags for a year; having disappeared,
a new lingo's herby zest on my tongue,
to head South on a mule, where a bandit man
took gringo me to the heart of his gang; having robbed
the bank, the coach, the train, the saloon, outdrawn
the sheriff, the deputy sheriff, the deputy's deputy, caught
the knife of an enemy chief in my teeth; having crept away
from the camp fire, clipped upstream for a night
and a day on a stolen horse,
till I reached the tip
of the century and the lip of the next – it was nix to me
to start again with a new name, a stranger to fame.
Which was how I came to this small farm,
the love of my life
on my arm, tattooed on my wrist,
where we have cows and sheep and hens and geese
and keep good bees.
Bees are the batteries of orchards, gardens, guard them..
Virgil's Bees
Bless air's gift of sweetness, honey
from the bees, inspired by clover,
marigold, eucalyptus, thyme,
the hundred perfumes of the wind.
Bless the beekeeper
who chooses for her hives
a site near water, violet beds, no yew,
no echo. Let the light lilt, leak, green
or gold, pigment for queens,
and joy be inexplicable but there
in harmony of willowherb and stream,
of summer heat and breeze,
each bee's body
at its brilliant flower, lover-stunned,
strumming on fragrance, smitten.
For this,
let gardens grow, where beelines end,
sighing in roses, saffron blooms, buddleia;
where bees pray on their knees, sing, praise
in pear trees, plum trees; bees
are the batteries of orchards, gardens, guard them.
Rings
I might have raised your hand to the sky
to give you the ring surrounding the moon
or looked to twin the rings of your eyes
with mine
or added a ring to the rings of a tree
by forming a handheld circle with you, thee,
or walked with you
where a ring of church-bells
looped the fields,
or kissed a lipstick ring on your cheek,
a pressed flower,
or met with you
in the ring of an hour,
and another hour ...
I might
have opened your palm to the weather, turned, turned,
till your fingers were ringed in rain
or held you close,
they were playing our song,
in the ring of a slow dance
or carved our names
in the rough ring of a heart
or heard the ring of an owl's hoot
as we headed home in the dark
or the ring, first thing,
of chorusing birds
waking the house
or given the ring of a boat, rowing the lake,
or the ring of swans, monogamous, two,
or the watery rings made by the fish
as they leaped and splashed
or the ring of the sun's reflection there ...
I might have tied
a blade of grass,
a green ring for your finger,
or told you the ring of a sonnet by heart
or brought you a lichen ring,
found on a warm wall,
or given a ring of ice in winter
or in the snow
sung with you the five gold rings of a carol
or stolen a ring of your hair
or whispered the word in your ear
that brought us here,
where nothing and no one is wrong,
and therefore I give you this ring.
Invisible Ink
When Anon, no one now,
knew for sure the cu and koo
he spelled from his mouth
could put the tribe in sight
of a call they'd met before
in their ears, the air ever after was
invisible ink.
Then, hey nonny no,
the poets came; rhyme, metre,
metaphor, there for the taking
for every chancer or upstart crow
in hedgerow, meadow, forest, pool;
shared words, vast same poem
for all to write.
I snap a twig
from a branch as I walk, sense
the nib of it dip and sip, dip
and sip, a first draft of the gift –
anonymous yet – texted from heart
to lips; my hand dropping a wand
into this fluent, glittery stream.
Atlas
Give him strength, crouched on one knee in the dark
with the Earth on his back,
balancing the seven seas,
the oceans, five, kneeling
in ruthless, empty, endless space
for grace
of whale, dolphin, sea-lion, shark, seal, fish, every kind
which swarms the waters. Hero.
Hard, too,
heavy to hold, the mountains;
burn of his neck and arms taking the strain –
Andes, Himalayas, Kilimanjaro –
give him strength, he heaves them high
to harvest rain from skies for streams
and rivers, he holds the rivers,
holds the Amazon, Ganges, Nile, hero, hero.
Hired by no one, heard in a myth only, lonely,
he carries a planet's weight,
islands and continents,
the billions there, his ears the last to hear
their language, music, gunfire, prayer;
give him strength, strong girth, for elephants,
tigers, snow leopards, polar bears, bees, bats,
the last ounce of a hummingbird.
Broad-backed
in infinite, bleak black,
he bears where Earth is, nowhere,
head bowed, a genuflection to the shouldered dead,
the unborn's hero, he is love's lift;
sometimes the moon rolled to his feet, given.
John Barleycorn
Although I knew they'd laid him low,
thrashed him, hung him out to dry,
had tortured him with water and with fire,
then dashed his brains out on a stone,
I saw him in the Seven Stars
and in the Plough.
I saw him in the Crescent Moon
and in the Beehive and the Barley Mow,
my green man, newly-born, alive, John Barleycorn.
I saw him seasonally, at harvest time
in the Wheatsheaf and the Load of Hay.
I saw him, heard his laughter,
in the Star and Garter, in the Fountain, in the Bell,
the Corn Dolly, the Woolpack and the Flowing Spring.
I saw him in the Rising Sun,
the Moon and Sixpence and the Evening Star.
I saw him in the Rose and Crown,
my green man, ancient, barely born, John Barleycorn.
He moved through Britain, bright and dark
like ale in glass. I saw him run across the fields
towards the Gamekeeper, the Poacher and the Blacksmith's Arms.
He knew the Ram, the Lamb, the Lion and the Swan,
White Hart, Blue Boar, Red Dragon, Fox and Hounds.
I saw him in the Three Goats' Heads,
the Black Bull and Dun Cow,
Shoulder of Mutton, Griffin, Unicorn,
green man, beer borne, good health, long life, John Barleycorn.
I saw him festively, when people sang
for victory, or love, or New Year's Eve,
in the Raven and the Bird in Hand,
the Golden Eagle, the Kingfisher, the Dove.
I saw him grieve, or mourn, a shadow at the bar
in the Falcon, the Marsh Harrier, the Sparrow Hawk,
the Barn Owl, Cuckoo, Heron, Nightingale;
a pint of bitter in the Jenny Wren
for my green man, alone, forlorn, John Barleycorn.
Britain's soul, as the crow flies so flew he.
I saw him in the Hollybush, the Yew Tree,
the Royal Oak, the Ivy Bush, the Linden.
I saw him in the Forester, the Woodman.
He history, I saw him in the Wellington, the Nelson,
Greyfriars Bobby, Wicked Lady, Bishop's Finger.
I saw him in the Ship, the Golden Fleece, the Flask,
the Railway Inn, the Robin Hood and Little John,
my green man, legend strong, re-born, John Barleycorn.
Scythed down, he crawled, knelt, stood.
I saw him in the Crow, Newt, Stag, all weathers,
noon or night. I saw him in the Feathers, Salutation,
Navigation, Knot, the Bricklayer's Arms, Hop Inn,
the Maypole and the Regiment, the Horse and Groom,
the Dog and Duck, the Flag. And where he supped,
the past lived still; and where he sipped, the glass brimmed full.
He was in the King's Head and Queen's Arms, I saw him there,
green man, well-born, spellbound, charming one, John Barleycorn.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy. Copyright © 2011 Carol Ann Duffy. Excerpted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,Copyright Notice,
Dedication,
Dumb was as good as dead; better to utter,
Bees are the batteries of orchards, gardens, guard them ...,
What will you do now with the gift of your left life?,
The Woman in the Moon,
Out of the silence, I fancied I heard the bronze buzz of a bee,
Also by Carol Ann Duffy,
About the Author,
Copyright,