A Review By Frances

This beautifully presented slim little volume represents some of the work that Carol Ann Duffy has created since being made Poet Laureate.  Her linking theme is bees and two of my favourites are “Virgil’s Bees” which closes with the warning, “bees are the batteries of orchards, gardens, guard them”

And “The Human Bee”, inspired by the dearth of bees in China, which has resulted in cross pollination being done by hand – in spite of the skill of the human bee,  “I could not fly and I made no honey”

We heard Carol Ann Duffy read from this collection at Warwick Words recently, and hearing the stories that were the inspiration to the poems certainly adds to their poignancy and humour.  A particularly clever riposte is “Mrs Schofield’s GCSE” using  examples from Shakespeare of knifings, stabbings and other crimes of violence.  (One of Duffy’s own poems mentioning knife crime was removed from the GCSE syllabus when it was deemed unsuitable for young minds.) “Water” is an ode to her late mother, whose loss Duffy is still mourning, and there is a wonderful rant about the loss of the use of counties in addresses in, “The Counties” where Duffy’s sparky wit is given full reign, “But I want to write to an Essex girl..”

 Another lovely collection to treasure.