Yesterday I explored AQA’s Anthology poem Quickdraw from Carol Ann Duffy’s Rapture collection. I did express my disappointment with that poem and perhaps its rather self conscious contrivance.The row didn’t… Read More »An Analysis of Carol Ann Duffy's Disgrace revisited.
PART ONE. On Saturday I was enjoying a thoughtful discussion of Susan Hill’s novel, The Small Hand. We were analysing the opening line of Susan’s Hill’s ghost story, and exploring several… Read More »AQA/WJEC/Undergraduate English Literature: Analysing a text
Rooms are places of deep psycholgical unrest in Dickens. People feel trapped in spaces where age old drama are played out again and again. Repetition signifies deadly stasis and sterility.… Read More »Dickens' David Copperfield: A brief analysis of rooms.
George knew all about rooms. He had read about rooms where people started to rot inside and stare at each other across furniture where dust sat waiting, denying them light.… Read More »The Plasticine men three: The importance of Rooms.
T S Eliot’s Little Gidding was his favourite poem. This section of the poem plays with our sense of orientation, our certainties around time and life’s direction. I find I… Read More »T S Eliot Little Gidding: Carol Ann Duffy Beyond the language of the Living?
This plasticine man was small and had a pair of purple legs with green feet and a very round yellow head with orange hair.The others were only one colour. Uniform and… Read More »GCSE English tuition Manchester, Bolton and bury: The plasticine men two.
If ‘home’ is often a place of comforting repetition and ritual, Pip’s home with the ‘rampaging’ Mrs Joe in Dickens’ Great Expectations is a place of imaginative improvisation and daily… Read More »Charles Dickens' Great Expectations Chapter 8:Pip and his beginner's mind!
I love dreaming. Our night walks with out limits. Coach trips with colour. None of those daily conventions like looking at your watch. Being tied to time. But dreams can be… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Night Writing: Images working their hearts out?
We came from our own country in a red room which fell through the fields, our mother singing our father’s name to the turn of the wheels. My brothers cried,… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's 'Originally' poem from 'The Other Country' and 'Selected Poems':Stanza One.
It began when they moved house of course. They had all been quite settled as their Aunt Dorothy used to say to anyone who would listen during her weekly trips to the supermarket.… Read More »English Tuition in Manchester, Bolton and Bury: The Plasticine men.
Susan Hill’s novel The Woman in Black must be one of the most unsettling ghost stories ever written. It has a genuine darkness that eats away at your imagination, hijacking… Read More »GCSE descriptive writing: Susan Hill's short Masterclass of an opening!
What do we really know of others or ourselves? I may sometimes complacently profess ‘self knowledge’ but very often I surprise ‘myself ‘ and I do believe we are all… Read More »Sheenagh Pugh's The Bereavement of the Lionkeeper poem
For a change I will write underneath each stanza of Carol Ann Duffy’s Crush and discuss the poem in this way. My main concern with this method is that it… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy's Crush: Analysis and thoughts revisited.
Reading by Moira Eribenne (revisited 18/12/2011) Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer utters itself. So, a woman will lift her head from the sieve of her hands… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘Prayer’ : Analysis and Revisitation by Moira Eribenne
A Saturday Morning revisitation. The exotic security of primary education is superbly captured in this poem. This seemingly oxymoronic combination fosters learning of the most enduring kind, as the… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy’s In Mrs Tilscher’s Class Analysis and thoughts: Revisited! FREE VIDEO!
I read this shortly after W H Auden’s famous poem Funeral Blues -both deeply moving poems about monumental loss. Both poems suggesting that (like Mansfield’s story, The Life of Ma Parker) ‘There was nowhere’ left… Read More »Sheenagh Pugh: The Bereavement of the Lion- Keeper An Analysis
(I read this last night as part of a WJEC GCE past English paper. A lovely gift of a poem). I love this poem’s intimacy. The speaker grumbles his way… Read More »WH Auden: Roman Wall Blues Analysis and thoughts.
Carol Ann Duffy conveys the abject stoniness of grief in her poem, Mrs Lazarus. The widow of the most famous ‘miracle’ in the Christian Bible narrates her own ‘death’ after… Read More »Carol Ann Duffy: Mrs Lazarus analysis revised.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
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
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?
