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.
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?
‘Where are you going?’ Such a simple question. Yet the man who asked George was not a simple man. He was eager to talk because he had lost many things;… Read More »George goes for a walk.
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.
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!
Today I shall puff on an uncharacteristic cigar by way of a fond farewell to of one of TV’s greatest, most loved and iconic detectives, Peter Falk, the singular… Read More »Columbo : The Mackintosh No More! By Moira Eribenne
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?
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
”Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more crowded parts of Paris, would be bad enough now; but, at that time, it was vile indeed to unaccustomed… Read More »Charles Dickens’ Masterclass on place in A Tale of Two Cities.
A lonely country house with roving wild animals. A rampaging, ill tempered medical man with a beautiful step daughter he cannot abide. Mysterious, violent death is stealthily moving towards a… Read More »Tusi-bites with Janet Lewison: The Speckled Band of Conan Doyle.
A Wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great… Read More »The enigma of identity: Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.
Private English Tutoring improves your learning. It empowers you as it gives you the opportunity to ask any questions you want and to get individual advice and attention for your… Read More »Private English Tuition: How can you enjoy better marks and grades for your English studies?
In the dining room of Isambard Dunstan’s School for Wayward children, all was not well. Shards of lightning blasted from a black morning sky and burst upon the heath outside.’… Read More »Bolton School Entrance Examination 11+ Tip Four: Are you word rich or word poor?
Readers remember books primarily because of the characters they meet within the pages. Many times have I sat in a seminar or book group listening to heated arguments about characters… Read More »Bolton School Entrance Examination Tip Three: Constructing a character!
Rose Tremain takes us to France in this novel. Rural Cevennes where a collection of rather unhappy characters have assembled to start again, though not necessaily with the consent of… Read More »Rose Tremain’s Trespass: Secret hatreds in rural France.
On they went together. Rose and this strange boy and his dog. It felt like a pilgrimmage somehow, but no one had a notion why they had decided to take… Read More »Refuge: Surprise
