Before I begin the main point that I would like to make with this post, I would like to say this:

I personally loved the poetry found in Standing Female Nude. However, my taste in art and entertainment has generally gone against the flow in predominantly Mormon settings, much to the chagrin of my parents, and this seems to be no exception.

I think that we can find the underlying theme of Standing Female Nude in its ‘title track,’ the poem with the same name. In this poem, we are given two starkly contrasted images: a beautiful painting (of a naked lady) by an artist, hung in museums around the world, examined and analyzed by upper-class intellectuals, against the actual act of creating the painting, with a self-proclaimed ‘river whore’ standing cold, naked, and hungry modelling for an artist that takes himself too seriously.

Source: artsobserver.com

This imagery can be applied to many of the poems found in Standing Female Nude. This book is full of interesting poems, waiting to be delved into by poetry lovers, full of symbolism, structure, and other interesting devices deployed by Carol Ann Duffy. The reader is like the observer of the painting: they admire, they ponder, and then they move on.

This doesn’t change the stark reality of what is happening inside the painting. In ‘Lizzie, Six,’ for example, we see a beautifully structured poem, with each of the stanzas reflected in the next, gradually building on itself to paint a picture of… child abuse. This poem is interesting and though provoking, but it doesn’t change the fact that this image is happening in real time to someone, somewhere. Somewhere, a lady is standing cold, naked and hungry while she waits to be painted into a great work of art, which may well become a dusty afterthought in the back of some museum. Someone, somewhere, is in an abusive situation, from which this poem will draw its inspiration. Action may not be taken because of this poem; it will just be observed, and the page will turn into a new story.

This book is a collection of standing female nudes. Many of the poems seems to draw from Carol Ann Duffy’s own experiences, but many of them seem to be short glimpses into peoples’ lives. Someone, somewhere has an entire life full of different experiences. All we see into their life is a small sketch, they are painted into beautiful poetry. We read, ponder, and admire the art that takes the form of a moment of their life, and then we move along.