3 out of 5 stars
Falling in love is a complex and messy business, from the churning of emotions on finding someone who might be that one special person, the passion of an early relationship, the comfort of a steady companion and the turmoil and angst with there are stumbles and breaks.
Many people have written about this roller coaster of love, and Rapture is Carol Ann Duffy’s collection of poems about real love. These poems feel raw and are deeply laced with emotion. The poem Venus is about not being able to hold her lover in any intimate way any more but is suffering from insomnia and can watch the transit of Venus. There are poems about waking in the middle of the night and not having them there and the sorrow of not being able to use the words I love you in her vocabulary anymore.
Night clenches in its fist the moon, a stone
I wish it thrown.
I clutch the small stiff body of my phone
This is not the easiest collection to read as she pours her broken heart into these words. The way that she uses language to conjure images of the darker moments of her introspection are quite bleak. Even though it could be quite cheerless, I did like this, but not as much as some of her other collections that I have read like, The Bees.
Three Favourite Poems
Forest
Fall
Land
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