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Boys in skinny jeans loll about at bus stops reeling off verse (according to Glamour magazine). Funky comedians stroll through the streets reciting snippets of Wordsworth (as part of a new poetry-can-be–cool BBC initiative). And the acclaimed poet, Pete Morgan, got a full house laughing at the Jack Lyons Concert Hall (of course York university is a principle player in any literary trend).
Poetry, it seems, is back on the bookshelf. But what has prompted this metamorphosis? Perhaps- quite probably- it is all the hype that has surrounded the unveiling of the new poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy. It was her appearance, after all, that brought a rapturous response at Pete Morgan’s celebratory evening. She walked on stage, swishing around in her velvet cape-like clothes, droned on a bit in her steady monotone moans and then, as if by magic, we were all suddenly hooked. Look! There, in front of us was poetry royalty, poetry glamour.
Duffy’s poems aren’t just eloquently rhymed observations about mundane rain and escapades in the English landscape. They don’t go on and on and on. They’re more like intriguing little stories. In The World’s Wife, her most famous collection, she takes a few fairy tales and myths, such as King Midas and his golden touch, and wittily reworks them in order to capture a woman’s point of view.
Injecting feminism, her sexuality and a comedic brilliance into her poems Duffy has re-fashioned poetry to fit the times. You don’t have to be a be-speckled library dweller to unravel her intricate imagery~ every day school children are studying it and loving it in classrooms (perhaps not the boys).
‘Poetry is all around us, all of the time, whether in song or in speech or on the page, and we turn to it when events, personal or public matter most’, declares Duffy in a Radio Four Woman’s Hour interview. And she’s right. Beautifully formed phrases pass us by all the time. But poetry takes those phrases, those moments, and holds them safely on a page. When it comes to those most significant things in our life~ deaths, births, weddings and birthdays~ it is so often poetry that we turn to, poetry that can express the sentiments we wish to show.
Duffy’s fame has reminded the nation that poetry really is important. Her last remarks at Pete Morgan’s celebration were touching. For Christmas next year Duffy beseeched her audience not to buy silly socks or disposable chocolates but a small book of poems, something to treasure. Ah. Maybe I will.
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