30/4/18 - Monday Book Reviews - Poetry Edition - Rapture

Today is a very special day! As it has been sixteen Mondays since the first post on this blog, it means, it's finally time for the fourth Poetry Version of Monday Book Reviews!

The subject of today's review will be Rapture, a collection of poems by Carol Ann Duffy. 

I was a huge fan of this collection! Duffy has a way with words. These pieces, focussing on relationships were heavy and emotive. I had several favourites from this book! I want to discuss them because I felt that they encompassed so many different emotions. But which one was my all-time favourite?

Hour.

I studied that particular poem in GCSE English with my best friend and we swooned over the use of language in such a short piece to encompass the emotions Duffy, or the character she was depicting, had experienced.

Finding this poem again was an amazing surprise. I had loved it five years ago and I loved it rediscovering the poem. I felt like coming back to such a beloved piece was refreshing and insightful. When I was in secondary school, my classmates didn't seem to understand why my best friend and I were so enamoured with Hour as a piece, for it was so short! Especially when compared to the stronger more narrative pieces like Quickdraw.

The poem is short and sweet and beautiful. In just a few short stanzas you can imagine that situation, place yourself in the shoes of the narrator and it is so captivating. Every word seemed to be so precise and explicit in explaining that state of mind!

I have been a fan of Duffy's work for a very long time and hope that this tiny rant about Hour provides you with some substantial reasoning to justify giving this collection a look!

Thank you for reading! See you in two weeks for another instalment of Monday Book Reviews! - Next time, we will be going back to prose! 

And remember:

Per Ardua Ad Astra

-Imogen. L. Smiley