Feminine Gospels ~ Carol Ann Duffy
Feminine Gospels by Carol Ann Duffy was one of our A-Level texts and it was definitely not a text I enjoyed (because I didn’t like the teacher). I didn’t think I would ever reread it, but as September came around quicker than I expected and left me floundering for a book on the theme of feminism, I decided why not?.
Feminine Gospels is an anthology of poems that are centred around female identity, drawing on history, the bible, fantasy and stereotypes.
My copy is a little bit of a disorganised mess; half the poems have been annotated, some to the extent that it’s a little hard to read the original texts. Unfortunately, most of these notes mean absolutely nothing to me now. Despite having to wade through hundreds of pencil markings, I actually found myself enjoying the flow of the poems a lot more now that I wasn’t stopping every two lines to make a note.
This anthology is kind of split in two. The first half contains poems about women in general; Mother Earth personified, famous tragic women, or what women can do. I liked these poems a lot more than when we read them in class. Loud, the eighth poem in the book definitely felt more poignant, but that is most likely due to circumstances of the time. The Map-Woman was also more enjoyable without constantly having to pull apart the metaphors.
The Laughter of Stafford Girls’ High is the marker between the two halves and was so much longer than I remember it being. It’s a whopping twenty pages with long lines and long stanzas. Reading this one, it felt like it dragged on and on and nearly made this book a DNF.
The second half features more personal poems; poems that are more anecdotal and two are dedicated. Whilst I did enjoy these poems more than when I first read them, I didn’t quite like them. It was hard to read them and not think of the English teacher I didn’t like and some of the very bizarre and offputting comments she made.
Overall, it was interesting to go back and read Feminine Gospels now that I didn’t have to each poem, stanza, line apart, but the poems are still tainted by my last read. It gets three stars.
C🌙
