Book Review: Rapture

Book #18

(I know I normally post a quote, but I’m not going to this time because I’m going to post a poem out of the collection.)

This is the fourth poetry book I’ve read this year. I’m glad I’m reading poetry in abundance again, it’s inspiring me and I’m enjoying it so much. 

Carol Ann Duffy is a spectacular poet. She is one of the few writers where I agree with every good review. I won’t post them all, but suffice to say usually critics find different aspects of the writer to compliment or criticize, and I often agree with just one or two, if with any of them at all. With her, they’re all right.

Another thing that makes Duffy vastly different from other poets for me is this: I want to write like her. There are so many poets and writers I adore, that I would not have wanted to go through life having not read and not fallen in love with their words, but I’d never say, “This is how I want my writing to be perceived”. But with her, it is. The fluidity of her words, the ease of her metaphors that slide back into ordinary language, the preciseness of the emotions she conveys, all the while being accessible, modern and linguistically beautiful — it’s unbelievable. I never know who I want my writing to be like. In interviews I’ve been asked and I’ve always said I don’t know.

But now I definitely do. It’s not that I haven’t read her before. It’s just that I hadn’t distinguished the difference between strongly admiring and having a literary rolemodel.