Today’s poem to read in your bath is another by the wonderful Carol Ann Duffy. I flick through her slim anthologies, looking for poems to select for this feature, and stop again and again: ‘this one, and this one… and this one.’

‘Name’ is about the delights on new love, not necessarily young love, just the feeling when you realize liking is loving.

Because of copyright restrictions I am unable to reproduce the poem in full, but please search it out in an anthology or at your local library or click the link below to hear Duffy read the poem aloud.

‘Name’
When did your name
change from a proper noun
to a charm?

Its three vowels
like jewels
on the thread of my breath.

Duffy encapsulates that feeling of new love so well it is impossible to read without being drawn back through years of memories.

To read another Carol Ann Duffy poem, ‘Elegy’ in my blog series ‘A poem to read in the bath…’, click here.

To listen to Carol Ann Duffy read ‘Name’ click here for The Poetry Archive website.

In 1989, Carol Ann Duffy spoke to the BBC Programme ‘English File’ about what inspires her to write. Click here to watch it.

 

‘Rapture’ by Carol Ann Duffy [UK: Picador] 

Read these other excerpts and find a new poet to love:-
‘Runaways’ by Daniela Nunnari
‘Sometimes and After’ by Hilda Doolittle
‘Happiness’ by Stephen Dunn

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
A #poem to read in the bath: ‘Name’ by Carol Ann Duffy http://wp.me/p5gEM4-14G via @SandraDanby

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