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A review by notwellread
The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy
3.0
Firstly, I appreciate the diversity of subject matter (as the blurb promises – bees themselves are a motif, of course, but they don’t actually feature in the majority of the poems) and how Duffy attempts to reflect the zeitgeist (it’s very modern and sometimes relatable), as poet laureates are wont to do. I can also respect that it was written and publicised with an environmental cause in mind.
The collection is diverse, as I said, enough so that everyone should find something they like – some of it is very abstract; other contributions are more straightforward. Myself, I found that the majority didn’t blow me away, but had a few favourites that I thought were great (“Cold” sticks out in my mind – I thought it was incredibly moving for such a short poem). My overall thoughts are reflected in the rating – as Goodreads says four 3-star reviews, I ‘liked it’, and I feel a middling rating is appropriate for a text that is good overall but has it’s ups and downs.
One other reviewer has said that they didn’t feel they understood the collection fully because they didn’t know enough about British culture to understand all the references, but (if it’s any consolation) I have lived in England all my life and I didn’t feel I understood them all either. It might be useful to have Google to hand if you want to tackle this (it also helps with the Welsh in the dedication, if you don’t speak it).
The collection as a whole has an ethereal, light-touch feel to it, which is typical of Duffy’s poetry (from my experience), so if you have any prior experience of her work then going by your opinion of that will probably tell you whether you’ll enjoy this. A lot of it also deals with current affairs around the time of publication (2011) but much of it is still in recent memory and still worth reading. If you’ve never read Duffy before, it’s probably best to start with one of her earlier collections before you read this, since I feel one of her earlier collections might engage you a little more. (I think this one is still worth a shot, though.)
The collection is diverse, as I said, enough so that everyone should find something they like – some of it is very abstract; other contributions are more straightforward. Myself, I found that the majority didn’t blow me away, but had a few favourites that I thought were great (“Cold” sticks out in my mind – I thought it was incredibly moving for such a short poem). My overall thoughts are reflected in the rating – as Goodreads says four 3-star reviews, I ‘liked it’, and I feel a middling rating is appropriate for a text that is good overall but has it’s ups and downs.
Spoiler
(Maybe a good approach would be to go through the collection and tab the ones you like? Don’t dog-ear, though. It’s not right.)One other reviewer has said that they didn’t feel they understood the collection fully because they didn’t know enough about British culture to understand all the references, but (if it’s any consolation) I have lived in England all my life and I didn’t feel I understood them all either. It might be useful to have Google to hand if you want to tackle this (it also helps with the Welsh in the dedication, if you don’t speak it).
The collection as a whole has an ethereal, light-touch feel to it, which is typical of Duffy’s poetry (from my experience), so if you have any prior experience of her work then going by your opinion of that will probably tell you whether you’ll enjoy this. A lot of it also deals with current affairs around the time of publication (2011) but much of it is still in recent memory and still worth reading. If you’ve never read Duffy before, it’s probably best to start with one of her earlier collections before you read this, since I feel one of her earlier collections might engage you a little more. (I think this one is still worth a shot, though.)