New Tusi Note now available to download and buy. Just the ideas you need to be different! The idea of any existence before ‘me’ often seems rather weird- a try… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy :’Before you were mine’ An Analysis Revisited. FREE VIDEO!
Carol Ann Duffy’s poetry features on many GCSE, A Level and Undergraduate courses. Her poems are some of the most searched for on Google and on Amazon underlining her justifiable… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy Selected Poems: Analysis, Notes, Ideas.
Apparently this poem by Rosssetti and set to music by Holst, was voted the United Kingdom’s favourite carol . Today, walking my two dogs around a deserted park, I found myself singing the… Read More »Christina Rossetti and Carol Ann Duffy : In the Bleak Midwinter.
This is one of my favourite Carol Ann Duffy poems. It appears in Mean Time and has a witty pathos all of its own. Even as the poet receates… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Litany: An analysis revisited.
Pablo Neruda’s poem embraces the suffering endured by human beings because they choose to differentiate themselves so keenly and resolutely from one another. The I/thou relationship so fraught with misunderstanding,… Read More »Pablo Neruda: Too many Names- a tusi bite.
Poe’s words are uniformly despondent here. His word pools create a relentlessly gloomy atmosphere that defies nature’s capacity for renewal. His tone is monotone, his visions those of darkness and… Read More »Edgar Allan Poe: The Fall of the House of Usher
Someone might have come along that way who would have asked him his trouble, and might have cheered him by saying that his notions were further advanced than those of… Read More »Jude The Obscure Book One Chapter IV: Hardy's own bleak house of despair?
‘I once more smell the dew and rain.’ This is a truly rejuvenating poem, acknowledging human error and frailty, yet also celebrating the power of spiritual connection; the healing of perception through… Read More »George Herbert's The Flower: An Analysis and Tusi bite.
This is an old entry revisited where I ruminate over Carol Ann Duffy’s popularity in terms of her ability to make us feel nostalgic about experiences we may not have… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Stafford Afternoons: An another analysis-or why is Carol Ann Duffy so popular?
How many times in our childhoods are we asked the question: ‘Where are you going?’ And here in Carol Ann Duffy’s evocative recollection of an afternoon adventure, we re-enter the… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Stafford Afternoons: An Analysis Revisited.
And here you come with a shield for a heart and a sword for a tongue and your girls, your girls. Wasn’t I beautiful Wasn’t I fragrant and young? Look… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Medusa: The last stanza revised..
Beyond all this, the wish to be alone: However the sky grows dark with invitation-cards However we follow the printed directions of sex However the family is photographed under the… Read More »Philip Larkin 'Wants': A an analysis
A Revisitation! Medusa is powerfully associated with her feelings. She is so attuned to her feelings in fact, that they seem to have very independent life of their own! ‘Association’ with one’s… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Medusa An Analysis (Revised) of the first three stanzas
Revisitation! Medusa’s infamous stare reduces all who come near her to stone. I can imagine that such power at certain points of my life might have been useful, but for… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Medusa: An Analysis
A Revisitation! Carol Ann Duffy’s poem Havisham was the very first poem I taught as a Private English Tutor and was the first poem I encountered from the AQA Anthology.… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy’s Havisham: An Analysis. FREE VIDEO!
I read this poem just now and found myself listening to its sounds : rather like the pulse of a human heart or the ticking of a clock in the corner… Read More »Louis Macneice's The Sunlight on the Garden: Accepting life's simple pleasures. :
Carol Ann Duffy’s bleak retrospect below on a finished love affair, justifies very clearly the title of the poem and collection: ‘Mean Time’. The loss of love’s ‘light’ and time’s… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Mean Time: Night walks for hearts.
She asked me to luncheon in fur. Far from the loud laughter of men, our secret life stirred. I remember her eyes, the slim rope of her spine. This is… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Oppenheim's Cup and Saucer: the erotics of lunch!
Lock the door. In the dark journey of our night two childhoods stand in the corner of the bedroom watching the way we take each other to bits to stare… Read More »Close by Carol Ann Duffy: Intimacy lost and found.
Now as at all times I can see in the mind’s eye, In their stiff, painted clothes, the pale unsatisfied ones Appear and disappear in the blue depth of the… Read More »The Magi by W B Yeats: The Endless dissatisfaction of Desire?
Jeanette Winterson’s reading of her new book, Why be happy when you could be normal? at the Royal Exchange on Sunday 30th October was wonderful in the most real sense of… Read More »Jeanette Winterson's Rapturous visit to Manchester's Royal Exchange!
I love the way both Winterson and Duffy capture the utter disorientation of love. Love is finding your way and losing your way at the same time. Certainty and complacency… Read More »The Bewilderment of rapture! Carol Ann Duffy and Jeanette Winterson
One of the most useful and practical techniques advocated by NLP involves taking responsibility for your life and behaviour at cause rather than at effect. Jimmy Petruzzi’s new book about… Read More »Excel in English: Are you performing at cause or at effect?
In 2008 I published a long essay on Carol Ann Duffy’s powerfully erotic poem, Warming her Pearls, comparing it not unsurprisingly to Sarah Waters’ tantalising Neo-Victorian Thriller, Fingersmith. The essay… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Warming her pearls: Revisiting my review.
O quam te memorem virgo… STAND on the highest pavement of the stair— Lean on a garden urn— Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair— Clasp your… Read More »T S Eliot's La figlia Che Piange: Baffling the reader for beauty's sake?
Hour Love’s time’s beggar, but even a single hour bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich. We find an hour together, spend it not on flowers or wine, but… Read More »AQA Carol Ann Duffy's 'Hour' – love's timely bargaining?
George wanted some one to answer his question about love and Demeter, but his Aunt was dead and no one else knew his soul. So he leant against the kitchen… Read More »Writing Demeter: Looking for Sydney Carton
I love devouring anecdotes and ‘bits’ of real stories as they feed into all sorts of experiences and writings. Serge Lutens creates wonderful perfumes and the ‘genesis’ tale of his… Read More »Private English Tuition Manchester/Bolton/Bury: The scent of a good story
Writing an essay or a story under examination conditions can be stressful and mind draining! We can feel as if our words have left us-and fled to some faraway place… Read More »Bolton School Entrance Examination Tip Six: Word pools for essays
”We few, We happy few, We band of brothers.” Agincourt beckons and Shakespeare’s King Henry V is trying to rally a beleagured English army before they they face the French who… Read More »Tusi-bites: Henry V and the rule of three by Janet Lewison
