A review by samdalefox
Feminine Gospels: Poems by Carol Ann Duffy

challenging reflective sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? N/A
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

As always, poetry collections will be hit and miss so the star rating tends to be middling. In this collection Carole Ann Duffy writes a range of poems exploring the feminine experience of girls and women. Although certain topics are commendably explored such as rebellion, rage, sexulisation/commodification/made a muse, menstruation, eating disorders, and same sex desire and love, I still found the narrative too binary for my liking in its description of sex and gender, and old fashioned in its definition of feminine. As such most were 'meh' for me, with a few stand outs, listed below.

Favourites:

• The map woman - surrealist and beautiful commentary upon home, belonging, and self development.
• Work - a clear and heartbreaking depiction of the physical and mental labour women do to keep society running, it can also be read as the increasing and thoughtless burden of humanity upon mother nature. 
• Loud -  carried a really important message on how women have to shout to be heard and the pure rage we have at the systemic violence inflicted upon us disproportionately. (Especially through global war, note the Afghanistan 2001 sentence at the start and the descriptions of violence towards the end).
• Gambler - I personally identified, because I do this too!

I also quite like charzpov's review:

"The structure of the collection is very clever, starting with the typically 'Angry, Hurt Feminist' poems which we all associate with Duffy, and ending with much more sentimental, personal and arguably unsettling poems. Individually, the poems are nice and present a clear political and personal message, if a little simple. It's a very nice and easy poetry book to read with some clear and important messages throughout."