[New-Poetry] Carol Ann Duffy gets the laurels

[Uche Ogbuji]

maryann wrote:
> Hello, new member here. We're amassing a fair collection of links to
> some of her poems and articles about her over here:
> 
> http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=7440
> 
> My introduction to her was her sonnet "Prayer," which is widely
> anthologized. I figured it hadn't been mentioned here because everybody
> knew it, but in case I'm wrong, here's a link:
> 
> http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/987.html
> 
> The sonnet appeals to me much more than the sly and amusing pieces that
> are being quoted in the recent articles.

Hmmm.  Yuck.  Some people think John Ruskin's "pathetic fallacy" is any
random anthropomorphic trope, but they're wrong.  There is nothing wrong
with anthropomorphic trope in general.  The problem is when a
characterization of an inanimate object is meant to carry the *entire*
metaphorical force of the expression.  *That* is what Ruskin rightly
ridiculed, and *that* is how this sonnet offends in spades:

... and stare
at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.

... hearing his youth
in the distant Latin chanting of a train.

Those are the most sophomoric bits to me, and it made it hard for me to
appreciate anything else in the poem.


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