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Rapture [Paperback]

Carol Ann Duffy
4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
RRP: £9.99
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Book Description

3 Sep 2010 0330433911 978-0330433914 New Ed
The T. S. Eliot Prize-winning collection from the Poet Laureate.

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Product details

  • Paperback: 80 pages
  • Publisher: Picador; New Ed edition (3 Sep 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0330433911
  • ISBN-13: 978-0330433914
  • Product Dimensions: 13 x 0.8 x 19.7 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 7,384 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Review

'Whether in love or cursing its name, [Carol Ann Duffy's] stunning verse makes your heart soar... This book speaks to everyone about love - and will sweep you away.' --Easy Living

'heartbreakingly beautiful. It is immediately accessible and evocative. Somehow, Carol Ann Duffy finds words for my heart that I could never speak out.' --Daily Telegraph

Book Description

Carol Ann Duffy’s seventh collection is a book-length love poem, and a moving act of personal testimony; but what sets these poems apart is Duffy’s refusal to simplify the contradictions and transformations of love – infatuation, longing, passion, commitment, rancour, separation and grief. Instead, Rapture is a map of real love, in all its churning complexity, showing us that a song can be made of even the most painful episodes in our lives. These are poems that will find deep rhymes in the experience of most readers and will, ultimately, prove that poetry can and should speak for us all. ‘It isn’t often that I pick up a book of poems and read it straight through like a novel, but that is exactly what happened with Rapture. Read this book if you are in love, out of love or waiting for it to come along’ Daisy Goodwin, Mail on Sunday ‘Carol Ann Duffy is the most humane and accessible poet of our time, and Rapture is essential reading for the broken-hearted of all ages’ Rose Tremain, Books of the Year, Guardian

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
49 of 50 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Experience Rapture 26 Jun 2008
By LittleMoon TOP 1000 REVIEWER VINE™ VOICE
Format:Hardcover
Who said the love poem is dead? Carol Ann Duffy's Rapture stands with shining silver defiance against any such assertion.

Starting with one of my all-time favourite poems, "You", Duffy writes "the thought of you stayed too late in my head/so I went to bed, dreaming you hard". The collection moves with quiet ease, showcasing Duffy's natural inclination to form and rhyme, through to the final line "a gift, the blush of memory".

The poems in this book are all love poems, although love is written about in all its various colours, from intense longing and the grief of separation, to love as a great redeeming power.

Duffy is so important as a figure in contemporary poetry, one of the few living poets who actually manages to sell books. Her poetry is very accessible for any reader, not just those interested in poetry, echoing her own belief that poetry should be able to speak for everybody.

This book makes a wonderful gift. The hardback is beautiful, it has a fairytale cover in silver and red, and even a red ribbon to use as a marker.

Rapture isn't just a book of poems, it's an experience.
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34 of 37 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Love in all its Manifestations 22 Mar 2008
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Rapture is Carol Ann Duffy's seventh collection of poems. It is a collection that has love as its underlying theme or unifying idea. The collection is made up of short lyrical poems in which Miss Duffy sets out to express and explore a range of emotions and ideas surrounding the notion of love. Given this narrow subject matter, the question at the back of my mind as I set out to read the collection was just how well will Miss Duffy maintain my interest?

Most of the poems are delivered by a first person narrator speaking to a second person, "you". Although it is not always clear who the second person is, nonetheless this approach gives the poems a personal and intimate feel. The intensity of feelings conveyed are even further heighten by, in some instances, setting them against the background of a river, a forest, rain, etc. In the poem River, the intensity of feelings is made real by the fact that the poet personifies the river leaving the reader with a clear image of just how tender love can be.

Almost as if harking back to the romantic era, in the poem Haworth Miss Duffy continues to draw on natural phonomena as a backdrop to her theme of love. Haworth presents a powerful way of recalling a love vanquished by death. The natural surroundings are full of reminders of lost love. But this is not just a lament for a lover passed on it is also a love song for and to nature.

One of the things these poems reminds us of is that although the person whom one has loved is no longer present, love continues. The reminders of what was once in place with all its impact is to be seen everywhere, for example, in places (Haworth), in time (Hour), in nature (Rain), and in the everyday things we take for granted (Swing). Love never really dies.

What I found particularly interesting about Rapture is that for the contemporary reader hell bent on materialism it shows that love is not about money or the over extensive use of material gifts but instead the idea of being together, doing and sharing the everyday things of life. Take for example the poem Tea, the first verse with its ordinary activity states: "I like pouring your tea,/ lifting the heavy pot, and tipping it up,/ so the fragrant liquid steams in your China cup". How much more down to earth can you get than this?

These are poems in which the narrator's reminiscences are triggered by places and events. This method gave scope to Miss Duffy to undertake an exercise in craftmanshift and technical accomplishment. So in The Lovers there is a contrast between two sets of lovers one with a home and one without or notice the way Miss Duffy manages to maintain a perfect rhyming scheme in the triplet stanzas of Haworth. I was dazzled by Miss Duffy's display of control over the form in which she presents her subject. But sometimes the brevity of the poems made the subject fleeting in terms of the significance it was meant to convey.

The poetic devices Miss Duffy uses renders her language afresh. Her poems are littered with internal rhymes sometimes quickening the rhythm and pace of the language - see for example the poem Quickdraw. Miss Duffy's use of poetic devices also had the effect of making me look at the familiar in a fresh light. Take the poem New Year, how refreshing it is to ring in the new year with these thoughts: "I drop the dying year behind me like a shawl/ and let it fall. The urgent fireworks fling themselves/ against the night, flowers of desire, love's fervency." Then in the poem Art, Miss Duffy does an almost comprehensive display of poetic devies: there is a sustained rhyming scheme, there is alliteration and there is even onamatopoeia - brilliant or a little too much?

Rapture is a delightful collection of love poems. It was refreshing to see how Miss Duffy managed to sustain a comparison between love and ordinary everyday things and activities. I was also beguiled by Miss Duffy's use of language and poetic devices.
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96 of 106 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars A strikingly original collection of love poems 15 Nov 2005
Format:Hardcover
I recently had the privilege of attending Carol Ann Duffy's poetry reading in Lancaster and was compelled to buy Rapture after hearing her read extracts from the book. I have yet to encounter another contemporary poet with such a flair for honesty when dealing with such a sentimentalised subject, chronicling every fleeting emotion associated with love and relationships. Carol Ann Duffy never fails to delight her readers with yet more witty, entertaining, and often heartbreaking words, and her symbiotic relationship with language and syntax remains present in each poem. This collection is worth every penny and I urge all fans of the poet and newcomers to her work to buy it now!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars sons
once more sons education has required him to have this book i am not sure whether is appealed or not
Published 3 months ago by sue
5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry that is sublime
Carol Ann Duffy and poetry go together like two peas in a pod. Simply brilliant, at times sublime, beautiful and a great range of emotions portrayed about love. Read more
Published 4 months ago by radadd
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful love poetry
These love poems can be intensely enjoyed for their emotion and imagery by a heterosexual reader even though they were written by a woman to a woman. It is wonderful stuff..
Published 5 months ago by W.Wood
5.0 out of 5 stars The title says it all
This is a gorgeous collection and I cannot describe it any better than that. If you love poetry, you simply must have this book, or give it to someone you love.
Published 5 months ago by Ms. Fiona Allen
4.0 out of 5 stars One of her best.
Not my favourite collection but still great. Has some of Duffy's best poetry ever. Very entertaining and and some of it funny.
Published 5 months ago by Emily Bell
5.0 out of 5 stars Great when you're driving in the rain
I love to listen to audio books. This was a particular stunner. Great poetry read by Juliette Stevenson. Wonderful. Read more
Published 5 months ago by M O S Thompson
5.0 out of 5 stars touching
Carol Ann Duffy is a prolific and varied poet laureate. This book had passed me by until I noticed it when browsing on my Kindle. Read more
Published 6 months ago by W. Wood
5.0 out of 5 stars A Poet Enchanted by Love's Language
In an epigraph to this astonishing collection of poems, Carol Ann Duffy quotes from Shakespeare's play, Two Gentleman of Verona: "Now no discourse, except it be of love;/ Now I can... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Alexis Dimyan
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully Sad
A Novel, of poetry. Each poem can be read like a chapter in a book, it tells a story, shows emotion and throughly captivates the reader within seconds. Read more
Published 10 months ago by jonige
5.0 out of 5 stars Pure bliss
When I was first falling in love, we did this book at my bookclub. A friend lent me her copy - hardback, red, with a red ribbon to mark the pages. Read more
Published 12 months ago by Rachel
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