TOP 100 BOOK SITES
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| Her Royal Century This official biography chronicles the parties, the games, the trips, the charitable causes — and the trouble thanks to Edward VIII. feeds.nytimes.com |
Hardcover Fiction Top 5 at a Glance1. UNDER THE DOME, by Stephen King2. THE LOST SYMBOL, by Dan Brown3. FORD COUNTY, by John Grisham4. THE HELP, by Kathryn Stockett5. THE LACUNA, by Barbara Kingsolver feeds.nytimes.com |
Laureate puts political spin on 12 days of Christmas Carol Ann Duffy's festive commission features hard-hitting contemporary topics, from Afghanistan and Copenhagen to Joanna LumleyCarol Ann Duffy, the poet laureate, has composed an uncompromisingly political and witty poem for her first Christmas in the post.Based on the traditional Twelve Days of Christmas, Duffy's 12 stanzas begin with an emotional critique of the war in Afghanistan and close with a passionate plea to the world leaders who congregate in Copenhagen tomorrow to discuss climate change.Far from avoiding controversy, Duffy's new Christmas work, commissioned exclusively for the Radio Times Christmas edition, also drily targets property-flipping MPs as well as overpaid and underachieving bankers. There are still turtle doves, french hens, geese a-laying and calling birds, but gone are the cheery gold rings and the comely milkmaids. Instead we are treated to gold-hungry celebrities and public servants determined to milk the system. Nor do peers of the realm escape the poet's scathing pen. Lords don't leap any more, we are told, they just snooze.In a later, elegiac verse on the theme of the swan, Duffy expresses her sorrow about the floods in Cumbria last month and about the loss this year of two of the country's most admired poets, UA Fanthorpe and Adrian Mitchell.It is a buzzard, rather than a partridge, that appears in the poem's opening lines to call up the image of the British armed forces far from their families for the holiday season and facing the possibility of death in the desert."In Afghanistan, no partridge, pear tree; but my true love sent to me a card from home."As one lonely soldier traces "the grins of my kids" in the yellow dirt, the poem brings to mind memorable phrases from Duffy's highly acclaimed Last Post, written earlier this year to commemorate the death of the first world war veterans Harry Patch and Henry Allingham. In that work Duffy refers to a soldier who kisses a family photograph while she, the poet, is left to regret that her words cannot turn back time and bring the troops home unscathed: "If poetry could truly write it backwards, then it would," it concludes.The bereaved wives of fallen soldiers are a recurring motif in her new poem, as are other women with cause to mourn the passing of the year: those affected by honour killings, those marooned in dirty hospitals or detention camps, and the wife of the police officer lost when a bridge at Workington collapsed.But there is celebration, too, as befits the time of year: among those singled out for the laureate's praise are Joanna Lumley and Fabio Capello.In a South Bank Show which is due to be aired tonight on ITV1, Duffy talks about her vocational pull to write poetry and says that she regards creating a poem as like giving a gift. "It is like a present, even when one isn't writing it," she said. "It is true of reading other people's, too."She said that she also regards her poetry as a reliable companion. "It might sound fanciful. But it is how I feel when I am writing it. I am never alone."Answering questions from the presenter Melvyn Bragg about her decision to accept the role of poet laureate this May – becoming the first woman, and the first openly gay, holder of the title – Duffy said she had been persuaded by her need to prove that poetry can still be central to Britain's cultural life."It is important to have a poet laureate in this country," she said. "It is a traditional way of showing that poetry matters. It is a traditional art, after all. For me to accept the role was difficult. I have a child and I am a very private person."She added that she felt "public roles should be inhabited comfortably and happily by people whatever their sexuality is" and that she will be proud to carry on in the post for the next 10 years.There is no onus on a poet laureate to produce a work at Christmas, but Duffy does have historical precedents. Since John Dryden became the first official poet laureate under Charles II, receiving the original salary of £200 a year and a butt of Spanish sherry, several holders of the title have attempted some seasonal verse.The third laureate, Nahum Tate, who held the title from 1692 until his death in 1715, is best known for writing the Christmas carol While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks by Night, while Robert Southey, laureate from 1813 to 1843, helped to revive a warm, blurry memory of the medieval Christmas feast when he wrote of "old ceremonies and old festivities" that had now become "obsolete". The Victorians took up the idea with enthusiasm.Another little-known laureate, Alfred Austin – who held the post from 1896 to 1913 – went so far as to compose verse for a series of Christmas cards for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in 1899. With the love of wildfowl evident in Duffy's new poem, she would surely approve. (This year, working with Tolkien's artist Stephen Raw, the current laureate has also helped to create a charity Christmas card for a hospice in Manchester.)In 2000 the previous poet laureate, Andrew Motion, chose homelessness as the theme of a Christmas poem written at the request of the Salvation Army. Researching by talking to homeless men at a hostel in London, he composed a 68-line poem, What is Given, about a wealthy barrister whose wife and child are killed in a car crash, sending him into decline.Newspapers that printed lines from the piece were asked to make a donation to charity.Day oneFirst stanza of 12 Days of Christmas by poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy On the first day of Christmas,a buzzard on a branch. In Afghanistan,no partridge, pear tree;but my true love sent to mea card from home. I sat alone,crouched in yellow dust,and traced the grins of my kidswith my thumb.Somewhere down the line,for another father, husband,brother, son, a bulletwith his name on. PoetryCarol Ann DuffyPoet laureateAfghanistanVanessa Thorpeguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2009 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |
High & Low Finance: Wall Street, the Depression and the Lords of Finance These six books — about financial history and how economics went astray — are informative and enjoyable. feeds.nytimes.com |
Linklog: The anti-list list, televised Nabokov, and more Five reasons to stop with the lists already.• Trilling and Nabokov in televised conversation. • Patricia Highsmith and Flannery O'Connor, housemates. • Your guide to celebrity audiobook voices.• Non-frivolous: get well soon, Harold Bloom.Peter Robinsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds feeds.guardian.co.uk |