Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Carol Ann Duffy poem

39 replies

vivariumvivariumsvivaria · 08/01/2022 12:44

Re-reading "The world’s wife" with studying teen.

Mrs Tireslias is about the woman married to a gender fluid person, based on the Greek myth about the seer, Tiresias.

"On tv
Telling the women out there
How, as a woman himself,
He knew how we felt"

I've never noticed it before, I thought it was about how men think they understand women, but, actually, the poem is about a trans widow, right?

worldswiferchk.weebly.com/mrs-tiresias.html

OP posts:
beastlyslumber · 08/01/2022 13:06

"as a woman himself" is such a great line.

Dinosauria · 08/01/2022 13:09

Do you have a link to the full poem, just Googled and got the anthology

vivariumvivariumsvivaria · 08/01/2022 13:12

Here you go, Dino genius.com/Carol-ann-duffy-from-mrs-tiresias-annotated

From the World's Wife, Carol Ann Duffy...

All I know is this:
he went out for his walk a man
and came home female.

Out the back gate with his stick,
the dog;
wearing his gardening kecks,
an open-necked shirt,
and a jacket in Harris tweed I'd patched at the elbows myself.

Whistling.

He liked to hear
the first cuckoo of spring
then write to The Times.
I'd usually heard it
days before him
but I never let on.

I'd heard one that morning
while he was asleep;
just as I heard,
at about 6 p.m.,
a faint sneer of thunder up in the woods
and felt
a sudden heat
at the back of my knees.

He was late getting back.

I was brushing my hair at the mirror
and running a bath
when a face
swam into view
next to my own.

The eyes were the same.
But in the shocking V of the shirt were breasts.
When he uttered my name in his woman's voice I passed out

Life has to go on.

I put it about that he was a twin
and this was his sister
come down to live
while he himself
was working abroad.

And at first I tried to be kind;
blow-drying his hair till he learnt to do it himself,
lending him clothes till he started to shop for his own,
sisterly, holding his soft new shape in my arms all night.

Then he started his period.

One week in bed.
Two doctors in.
Three painkillers four times a day.
And later
a letter
to the powers that be
demanding full-paid menstrual leave twelve weeks per year.
I see him still,
his selfish pale face peering at the moon
through the bathroom window.
The curse, he said, the curse.

Don't kiss me in public,
he snapped the next day,
I don't want folk getting the wrong idea.

It got worse.

After the split I would glimpse him
out and about,
entering glitzy restaurants
on the arms of powerful men -
though I knew for sure
there'd be nothing of that
going on
if he had his way -
or on TV
telling the women out there
how, as a woman himself,
he knew how we felt.

His flirt's smile.

The one thing he never got right
was the voice.
A cling peach slithering out from its tin.

I gritted my teeth.

And this is my lover, I said,
the one time we met
at a glittering ball
under the lights,
among tinkling glass,
and watched the way he stared
at her violet eyes,
at the blaze of her skin,
at the slow caress of her hand on the back of my neck;
and saw him picture
her bite,
her bite at the fruit of my lips,
and hear
my red wet cry in the night
as she shook his hand
saying How do you do:
and I noticed then his hands, her hands,
the clash of their sparkling rings and their painted nails.

OP posts:
vivariumvivariumsvivaria · 08/01/2022 13:13

I'm sure I've heard TinselAngel say something about the voice that's never quite right.

OP posts:
ArabellaScott · 08/01/2022 17:16

Thanks for sharing, vivarium. Really interesting poem. I didn't know the myth of Tiresias.

Turned into a woman as punishment!

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiresias

TurquoiseBaubles · 08/01/2022 17:23

I wonder how it would be possible to discuss that poem in a class of teenagers.

CompleteGinasaur · 08/01/2022 17:44

Love Carol Ann Duffy.

Always hated that bit of the Tiresias myth, though, where he/she is the only person able to settle the argument about whether men or women get more pleasure from sex; saying women get ten times more out of it always seemed like justification for the old misogynistic classic (sic!) about women always "gagging for it.."

EdinburghFeminist · 08/01/2022 20:03

Wow! I’ve never read that but I covered Tiresias as part of The Waste Land at school. Definitely reads to me as a trans widow speaking. I wonder how the class discussion will go for your teen on this, I am slightly surprised (I’m ashamed to say) that this is still on the curriculum in the current climate.

WorriedMumsDontSleep · 08/01/2022 20:27

I had the Carol Ann Duffy anthology for a level. Never got this one. This certainly adds an extra layer of meaning. I'd simultaneously both love and hate teaching it at a level in the current climate.

FlibbertyGiblets · 09/01/2022 00:11

She really is a marvellous wordsmith; the cling peach slithering, is shudderingly good.

vivariumvivariumsvivaria · 09/01/2022 01:26

Oh, no! They aren't doing THIS poem - I just paid a bit more attention than when his sister was doing it. And I'd bought the book meaning to read it because I like her work and dream of being cultured and reading more than 280 characters.

OP posts:
vivariumvivariumsvivaria · 09/01/2022 01:27

My Classics knowledge is limited to Percy Jackson.

It's great work. She's ever so good. I'm sure someone has told her.

OP posts:
Slothtoes · 09/01/2022 09:30

That’s a great poem, properly uncomfortable to read. Google tells me Duffy was the first female Uk poet laureate. How brilliant.

Doomscrolling · 09/01/2022 09:35

It’s my favourite poetry book! So many of them are powerful, and some just funny. Mrs Darwin, in particular, always made me smile.

hoochyhag · 09/01/2022 09:39

Woah. That is powerful.

ArabellaScott · 09/01/2022 09:39

Duffy is a fantastic poet, and only improving, imho.

EishetChayil · 09/01/2022 09:40

She is a staggeringly good poet.

TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross · 09/01/2022 09:41

Mrs Icarus

I’m not the first or last
to stand on a hillock,
watching the man she married
prove to the world
he’s a total, utter, absolute, Grade A pillock.

ArabellaScott · 09/01/2022 09:48

I hghly recommend 'The World's Wife', for anyone who hasn't read it.

dementedma · 09/01/2022 09:56

Wow. LOVE that!

RepentMotherfucker · 09/01/2022 18:08

@TheOnlyLivingBoyInNewCross

Mrs Icarus

I’m not the first or last
to stand on a hillock,
watching the man she married
prove to the world
he’s a total, utter, absolute, Grade A pillock.

You beat me to it! Grin
TurquoiseBaubles · 09/01/2022 18:17

Oh, I read the Icarus one before. I see I need to look into more of her work.

I'm disappointed I won't find out how a classroom conversation would go about "The World's Wife". I suspect it would be quite uncomfortable, but I would like to hear teenage views on it.

RepentMotherfucker · 09/01/2022 18:44

The Anne Hathaway one - the second best bed - is lovely.

Rightsraptor · 09/01/2022 18:51

Thank you for posting this OP. I knew it rang a bell and found 'The World's Wife' on my bookshelves - unread. No longer. Great stuff in there.

TurquoiseBaubles · 09/01/2022 20:13

I became aware of Carol Ann Duffy when "The wound in time" was the unseen poem on the Irish Leaving Cert in 2019. The only poem of hers on the actual curriculum is "Valentine".

I had no idea of the breadth of her writing and am really looking forward to exploring more.