Carol Ann Duffy's 'You'

Carol Ann Duffy (1955-)

This is the first poem in Duffy’s ‘Rapture’ (2005), which is either a book length love poem or a book length sequence of poems which chart the rise and fall of a passionate love affair. ‘Rapture’ won the T.S.Eliot Prize in 2005.

For many people the relationship between love and poetry seems a simple one. But of the thousands of poems written each day, and the thousands published each year, there are very few good love poems. As an experiment, pick up a general anthology of English poetry through the ages and see how many you can find. As is often pointed out: ‘I love you’ may be the most beautiful thing you’ll ever say, or hear, but it’s not a poem.

Because of this, ‘Rapture’ is an outstanding collection, as the poems move from ‘Love’s first plague to her wintry fever’.