her Aces over; diamonds, hearts, the pubic Ace of Spades.
And that was a lesson learnt by all of us –
the drop-dead gorgeous Bride of the Bearded Lesbian didn’t bluff.
But behind each player stood a line of ghosts
unable to win. Eve. Ashputtel. Marilyn Monroe.
Rapunzel slashing wildly at her hair.
Bessie Smith unloved and down and out.
Bluebeard’s wives, Henry VIII’s, Snow White
cursing the day she left the seven dwarfs, Diana,
Princess of Wales. The sheepish Beast came in
with a tray of schnapps at the end of the game
and we stood for the toast – Fay Wray –
then tossed our fiery drinks to the back of our crimson throats.
Bad girls. Serious ladies. Mourning our dead.
So I was hard on the Beast, win or lose,
when I got upstairs, those tragic girls in my head,
turfing him out of bed; standing alone
on the balcony, the night so cold I could taste the stars
on the tip of my tongue. And I made a prayer –
thumbing my pearls, the tears of Mary, one by one,
like a rosary – words for the lost, the captive beautiful,
the wives, those less fortunate than we.
The moon was a hand-mirror breathed on by a Queen.
My breath was a chiffon scarf for an elegant ghost.
I turned to go back inside. Bring me the Beast for the night.
Bring me the wine-cellar key. Let the less-loving one be me.
Demeter
Where I lived – winter and hard earth.
I sat in my cold stone room
choosing tough words, granite, flint,
to break the ice. My broken heart –
I tried that, but it skimmed,
flat, over the frozen lake.
She came from a long, long way,
but I saw her at last, walking,
my daughter, my girl, across the fields,
in bare feet, bringing all spring’s flowers
to her mother’s house. I swear
the air softened and warmed as she moved,
the blue sky smiling, none too soon,
with the small shy mouth of a new moon.
‘The most humane and accessible poet of our time’
Rose Tremain
‘A playful and extremely funny look at history, myths and legends through the eyes of the invisible wives . . . It sparkles with wit, intelligence and an impressive lightness of touch, while drawing on some weighty emotional experiences: loneliness, jealousy, self-loathing, desire, the fierceness of a mother’s love’
Independent
‘A joyous, exuberant book of poems about women usually excluded from myth and history: wives such as Mrs Pilate, Mrs Aesop, Mrs Darwin, Mrs Faust, Frau Freud, Mrs Quasimodo; women usually defined by their men’
Guardian
‘Duffy takes a cheeky, subversive, no-nonsense swipe with a dish clout at the famous men of history and myth. They don’t have a chance in hell of dodging her quick-witted wallop as she relays their stories from their spouse’s points of view . . . Reading Duffy’s dramatic monologues is a bit like overhearing a conversation in a ladies’ lavatory. You can almost imagine Mrs Midas touching up her make-up in the mirror as she moans about her husband’
The Times
‘Carol Ann Duffy dislodges the women of history and myth from their stone setting and injects their voices with new life in this dazzling collection of poems. Characters from the ancient past . . . retell their stories in poems shot through with quicksilver wit and contemporary colour. The voices might have different tales to tell but such is the daring acumen of Duffy’s revisionism that their modern (female) audience will be hanging on every word’
Metro
‘Poignant, thoughtful, funny, rich and accessible’
Ruth Padel, Guardian
The World’s Wife
Carol Ann Duffy lives in Manchester, where she is Professor and Creative Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has written for both children and adults, and her poetry has received many awards, including the Signal Prize for Children’s Verse, the Whitbread and Forward Prizes, and the Lannan and E. M. Forster Prize in America. She was appointed Poet Laureate in 2009. In 2011 The Bees won the Costa Poetry Award, and in 2012 she won the PEN Pinter Prize. She was appointed DBE in 2015.
Also by Carol Ann Duffy
Selling Manhattan
Standing Female Nude
The Other Country
Mean Time
Feminine Gospels
New Selected Poems
Rapture
Mrs Scrooge
Love Poems
Another Night Before Christmas
The Bees
The Christmas Truce
Wenceslas
Bethlehem
Ritual Lighting
Dorothy Wordsworth’s Christmas Birthday
Collected Poems
The Wren-Boys
The King of Christmas
AS EDITOR
Hand in Hand
Answering Back
To the Moon
Off the Shelf
Acknowledgements
Some of these poems have previously appeared in After Ovid (ed. Hofmann and Lasdun, Faber, 1994); The Big Issue; The Guardian; The New Statesman; The Pamphlet (Anvil, 1998); Poetry Review; Seven Deadly Sins (Brighton Festival, 1998); TLS; or have been broadcast on BBC radio and television.
A huge acknowledgement, with love and thanks, is due to Brendan Kennelly.
First published 1999 by Picador
This electronic edition published 2017 by Picador
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-7525-1
Copyright © Carol Ann Duffy 1999
Cover Illustration: Dinara Mirtalipova
The right of Carol Ann Duffy to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’ words and music by Lee Hazlewood, copyright © 1964 Criterion Music Corp., copyright renewed, copyright © 1993 Criterion Music Corp.
All rights reserved for Criterion Music Corp., administered in UK and Eire by Marada Music Ltd. Used by kind permission of Criterion Music Corporation.
‘Are You Lonesome Tonight’ words and music by Roy Turk and Lou Handman, copyright 1926 Bourne & Co. All rights reserved, Redwood Music Ltd (Carlin) London NW1 8BD for reversionary territories.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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