Publisher's Synopsis
The effortless virtuosity, drama and humanity of Carol Ann Duffy's verse have made her our most admired contemporary poet. Rapture, her seventh collection, is a book-length love-poem, and a moving act of personal testimony -- but what sets these poems apart from other treatments of the subject is Duffy's refusal to simplify the contradictions of love, and read its transformations -- infatuation, longing, passion, commitment, rancour, separation and grief -- as either redemptive or destructive. Rapture is a map of real love, in all its churning complexity; simultaneously direct and subtle, with poems that will find deep resonance in the experience of most readers, it is a collection that can and does speak for us all.
'These poems are outstanding; intellectually and emotionally complete, popular as love poems perhaps should be and can be, they are also masterly examples of poetic form . . . Rapture is brilliant, beautiful, and heart-aching' Jeanette Winterson, The Times
'Juliet Stevenson's deft reading extracts every ounce of the lover's fire, vulnerability and heartache' Rachel Redford, Observer
