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| Hearsay: |
Ah, a poet laureate with some wicked teeth. Duffy’s first poem as laureate attacks a government scandal. But is it any good? I leave that to you to decide.
In the poem Ms Duffy makes sarcastic use of phrases such as Tony Blair’s “education, education, education” and Gordon Brown’s “moral compass”.
Duffy is the first female poet laureate in the post’s 341-year history.
The poem aims to attack the effect of politics on idealism.
It begins: “How it makes of your face a stone that aches to weep, of your heart a fist, clenched or thumping, sweating blood, of your tongue an iron latch with no door.”
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June 15th, 2009 at 8:40 am
no wonder no one reads poetry anymore.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Oh, you don’t mean Mike Duffy? I thought I’d missed something about the multi-talented senator. But what at image: going for the throat indeed!
Mary
June 15th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
. . .”iron latch without a door” is a novel and arresting image, but nothing else in the poem rises to that level of originality and surprise. it’s a pedestrian piece of work. i’ve read much better political poems — and much better poetry in general — on random poetry Web zines.
June 15th, 2009 at 9:11 pm
I agree with howie. The first five lines are rather captivating, with provocative imagery suggestive of good things to come – and then the piece devolves into a banal political rant that uses repetition in place of anything interesting. But I guess it conveys the sense that politics are Bad. Or something.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:54 am
The problem with the poem is not aesthetic. It’s that it’s cynical.
If the idea is to show that ideals are subsumed to mere politics, then it isn’t a particularly novel observation. But people are so stupid about that that maybe it’s best if someone points it out to them in the form of a poem by a poet laureate. If people weren’t so apathetic and/or stupid about the way politicians dash hope by making things “about them” and their political popularity, then maybe this kind of thing could be written to show something other than cynicism.
This poem reflects the low level of understanding and care we have toward the failure of democratic ideals, so it’s not a surprise that it’s cynical. Just too bad.