Pygmalion’s Bride. While I was reading the second half of this book, I decided that before I read the poem, I would look up the story of whoever the poem was talking about or the story of the man who was being referenced in the poem. I found that Pygmalion is a play written by George Bernard Shaw based on the mythological figure of the same name. A quick version of the story is: Pygmalion fell in love with one…

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I have to admit, the poem “Mrs. Icarus” in Carol Duffy’s “The World’s Wife” made me chuckle to myself. The story of Icarus is one of my favorite Greek myths and I thought that Duffy’s take from Icarus’ wife’s point of view was very clever […]

I have to say reading “The World’s Wife” has been an interesting experience for me. I’m usually not a big…

Reading Carol Ann Duffy’s The World’s Wife has got me thinking about historic women, particularly Medusa. I heard somewhere (that is not a very reliable source I know) that the story of Medusa is actually a story ancient Greek women would look to for empowerment. In the original tale, Poseidon…

The World’s Wife.  What can you say? This post is really just my musings and new impressions of the second of Duffy’s poetry collections in our reading que.  I fully expect most of them to change and evolve as we continue to discuss this. -While Standing Female Nude’s collection of poems are threaded together loosely in… Read More First Impressions of The World’s Wife

Duffy’s book, The World’s Wife, offers us the opportunity to look at narratives, myths, and historical persons and events through the eyes of the otherwise overlooked. In reading The World’s Wife, one has the opportunity to contemplate the women behind the narratives we tell, whether they are real or accurate. Much of the world’s histories… Read More Looking Through Another Lens

I have to start out talking about my favorite poem from the first half of The Worlds Wife: Mrs. Midas. No doubt a familiar story aided my enjoyment. The poem read (and many of the others) read like some thought experiment which asked, “what are the real consequences?” For example, what really is the consequence of everything …

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I noticed three types of women in Duffy’s collection The World’s Wife. First, the preexisting heroines given a new voice, like “Little Red-Cap,” “Thetis,” “Pilate’s Wife” (Matthew 27:17-19) and others. Second, the apocryphal wives of famous male characters, as in “Mrs Midas” or “Mrs Quasimodo.” The third category is most intriguing to me: the original …

Most of us have heard the saying throughout our life that we can’t expect to judge or understanding someone accurately until we’ve walked a mile in their shoes. I feel like Carol Ann Duffy in her collection of poetry, titled “The World’s Wife,” is including this as one of the main messages of her book. …

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Yes, these poems definitely made me uncomfortable. The first half did not seem to have as many that made me uncomfortable, but this second half had quite a few. I mean, we started out the second half by reading “You…