Short Review about Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy's love poem, You, is about her love for a man. The poem expresses the poet's love for the man, and emphasises the fact that he doesn't know about it until the end, where she [the poet] finds the man on her bed.

The first word of the first line of the first stanza is uninvited, which is then followed by: "the thought of you stayed too late in my head". This suggests that she didn't welcome the feeling, but instead it overcame her. The line suggests she has been thinking about him a lot, followed by the rest of the stanza which further implements this idea by saying she goes to bed, dreaming of him and then waking with his name at her lips. In this stanza, the poet also talks about the man's name. She shows interest in it, and makes note of the "bright syllables" of it.

This shows she is interested in not only expressing her love for the man but also the language.The second stanza is slightly different - we've established she has feelings for him, so now she goes on to talk about what feeling in love is like. The poet writes "glamorous hell" - this summarises love for her. It tells us that although she likes herself being there, she doesn't like the feeling of uncertainty and insecurity.The third stanza continues talking about Duffy's love for the man, and how she secretly watched him as he came into sight - "You sprawled in my gaze". Then, we come to the fourth stanza.

This stanza writes about the poet walking into the bedroom and seeing the man she dreams about "on the bed".The poet has played with many poetic techniques in order to express the very personal subject of love.We see on the second line, the poet says "dreaming you hard, hard," which is later contrasted by the third line with, "like tears, soft". This contrast helps add meaning to the actions she is doing.

She says she is dreaming him hard - "hard" being an adjective which emphasises how she is dreaming. Then, later on, "like tears, soft, salt, on my lips" which once again is to do with the man's name she is interested in.Later on within the same stanza, Duffy uses two similes next to each other - "like a charm, like a spell." Using these similes helps us relate to what she is feeling, but they're also to do with Duffy's interest in the man's name.

Obviously we would not say someone's name was like a charm or a spell if we weren't in love with them, and so these similes further assert the emotion of love she is feeling.The second stanza starts with "Falling in love". The line starts two line breaks down from where the sentence would start if it was part of stanza two. This positioning reflects the content - the text has fallen, just as she has fallen in love."Glamorous hell" is an oxymoron - there is no way hell can be glamorous. No one can really understand the feeling of falling in love until they have experienced it, so this oxymoron is a fantastic way to help us understand what she is going through.

The letter 'l' is repeated many times. Examples of this are: "falling", "love", "glamorous", "hell", "flame's", "licks" and "kill". To say the letter l out loud requires one to say it clearly using one's tongue. This means we put emphasis on it and it makes the words stand out.

Not only this, but there's also a lot of alliteration with the letter l in the same stanza which, once again, emphasises the words. The letter l is also a very sensual letter. There are sexual words that start with an l - "lollipop", "licks" and "lube". This insinuates she is in love and wants to do sensual 'things' with the man.Stanza three is an extended metaphor.

It continues on from the introduction of the metaphor in stanza two - "like a tiger ready to kill". The poet says she "hid" in the "long grass", in her "camouflage" rooms. Metaphors help describe something, and so extended metaphors give a very vivid description of what is happening. Everything is said in a slightly different way to make it livelier. Duffy could have said, "I saw him in front of me" however instead, she continues the description using a tiger as a metaphor - "You sprawled in my gaze, staring".

Stanza four breaks the pattern of four lines per stanza. Instead, it only has two. We see enjambement from the end of stanza three to the start of stanza four too. This adds flow to the line and helps slow down the rhythm. Then short phrases are said - we have "The curtains stir" and "on the bed, like a gift, like a touchable dream." These short phrases help emphasise what she feels about him.

The phrase "like a touchable dream" is a simile but also an oxymoron, similar to "glamorous hell" in stanza two. This helps conclude the story she's being telling in the poem.I believe the poem is very effective. The content is very clearly conveyed and it is obvious what the poem is all about. The narrative techniques used - the oxymorons, alliteration, enjambement - help to portray the feelings that the poet is feeling and also to create vivid imagery so that readers can picture what is happening. There are many successful phrases within the poem.

For example, "glamorous hell" is a fantastic oxymoron to explain something.Text is similar to You with the main purpose being the same - to portray what her love for the man is like and also to explore language as a theme.The content of Text is also similar in some ways to the content of You. We know that she is in love with the recipient of her poem, and that it is about the same affair as the one written about in You - especially as we see her say "look for your small xx".

They also both explore the feeling of love, and show the effects it has on a person - in You, "glamorous hell" describes what love is like (and how it is great, but comes with its disadvantages, such as insecurity) and in Text, "I re-read your first, your second, your third" which shows again how she is insecure and obsessive of the man.The title Text is ambiguous. We have the first meaning - an SMS message via the mobile phone to another person, and then the second meaning - a piece of text in the English language. This again, shows how Duffy has explored language and used it to her advantage too.Not only this, but she goes on to write "our significant words", to show that words do not have true meaning when speaking or writing normally, however the words they are sending to each other, and indeed every word of a poem (including the one she is writing), are meaningful. Not only does the line explore language as Duffy did in You, but it also helps to convey her love for the man once again.

Although there are similarities between the two poems (in terms of content), there are also differences. The first is that You is written before the poet and the man have coupled, where Text which is a poem written after the couple have met and got together.Another difference refers to the endings. You ends happily - the woman has just met the man and he's there, lying on the bed waiting for her - "There you are ..

. touchable dream." Unlike You, Text ends on a sadder note, showing Duffy's insecurities - "Nothing my thumbs press will ever be heard."You and Text are similar in terms of form too. The first thing one notices about both is that they're written in first person.

The poet is speaking as the poet, not writing about a character. This adds to both the poems' purpose by making them personal. The poet is telling her story - a primary source - instead of the poet telling a story, where miscommunication or the inability to communicate the feeling could have taken place resulting in an incorrect description of love.Along with this, we see they both have fourteen lines - You written in a four-four-four-two formation, and Text written in seven couplets.

Sonnets have fourteen lines, in particular love sonnets, so this further shows that she's writing about love.Both use imagery in order to portray something to do with love. In You, we learn that the "parched heart" is "like a tiger ready to kill". Relating what she is talking about to the tiger helps the reader imagine what she is talking about. We see this in Text too where Duffy says the "image is blurred" upon mentioning trying to picture the man's hands.

Once again, with these similarities come differences. The first refers to a similarity - although both poems have fourteen lines, Text isn't a traditional sonnet. It is more of a modern poem, with the form reflecting the content. The poem is about two people texting each other, and so the poem has been set out in short couplets which look like text messages, each being small so it is as if it is being read off of a mobile phone. Text, unlike You, uses very basic punctuation which once again reflects the content, as one does not usually see punctuation in text messages - "I tend the mobile now like an injured bird" compared to You's "The curtains stir.

There you are on the bed, like a gift, like a touchable dream."The rhyming patterns in both poems are different too. You contains internal rhymes - "...

camouflage rooms. You sprawled...

/ ...earth-struck moon which gapes..

." whereas Text contains external rhymes - "your second, your third," and "feeling absurd." Rhymes help a poem read more fluently, especially if they're external, and remain in the readers mind more than the other words used. So, in the Text extract above, readers will often remember the words third and absurd, and instantly be able to say the poet is insecure about the relationship between herself and the man.

Name is similar to both You and Text, and also different. There are a few things that are evident in more than just Name. For example, as with You's use of the letter l, making it sensual, Name shows aspects of the poet being sensual in the third stanza, where it says, "brushing my mouth / like a kiss."Name links to a line in You - "like a charm" is said in You and "to a charm" is said in Name.

In both poems the word charm is used to describe the man's name. This shows she is still interested in his name and the structure to it. It also shows she is still truly in love with the man. This is further shown by the first stanza in Name. Duffy talks about the man's name not only being a proper noun, as a name is, but the charm mentioned previously.

There are differences to the content in the three poems also. Name again analyses language but unlike the other two, the theme of language is more prominent compared to the expression of love. Duffy includes components that make up a name throughout the poem - "noun", "vowels", "consonants", "alphabet" and "letters".Furthermore, we see that Duffy is more confident about her status within the relationship, and isn't insecure as she was in the other poems. We see this with her use of "I love", "I see", "I pray" and "I hear" in comparison to, for example, Text's "re-read".The form of Name is also similar to both You and Text.

All the poems contain imagery in order to clarify and add realism to the point they are backing. In Name, Duffy is writing about brushing her mouth and then backs it up with "like a kiss." Similarly, in You, she backs the excitement of seeing the man on the bed with the excitement of receiving a gift - "like a gift".Each poem has examples of repetition too - repetition helps something stick in one's mind.

In Name, Duffy writes, "rhyming, rhyming, rhyming", which links to the exploration and analysis of language.