this style. Consider the line, "If music be the food of love, play on" fromTwelfth Night (Act 1, Scene 1, Line 1), which follows the TA-dum TA-dum TA-dum TA-dum TA-dum rhythm. More loosely, blank verse can refer to any unrhymed poetry, with only minimal attention to the iambic pentameter structure. The poem "Originally" fits into this category.

In "Originally," less than a third of the lines contain exactly ten syllables, with most lines having eleven or twelve. However, the first stanza includes four consecutive ten-syllable lines, specifically lines 2 through 5. The iambic pentameter is evident in phrases like "which fell through the fields, our mother singing / our father's name to the turn of the wheels." The poem's construction doesn't get bogged down by strict adherence to a metrical form. Instead, it showcases interesting stylistic elements such as occasional rhymes and near rhymes sprinkled throughout the work.

Examples of near rhymes include "fields" in line 2 with "wheels" in line 3, "Home, / Home" in lines 4 and 5 with "rooms" in line 6, "more" in line 7 with "paw" in line 8, "understand" in line 14 with "said" in line 16, and "change" in line 17 with "shame" in line 19. The sole example of exact rhyme is "space" in line 22 with "place" in line 23. Alliteration, which is the repetition of consonant sounds for poetic effect, is also significant in the poem's structure. The most noticeable examples occur in lines 9, 10, and 11 with the s sound: "… Some are slow, / leaving you standing, resigned … / where no one you know stays. Others are sudden." The s sound reappears effectively in stanza 3 with phrases such as "seeing your brother swallow a slug"; "a skelf of shame"; "shedding its skin like a snake, my voice"; "classroom sounding just like the rest"; and "I lost a river, culture, speech, sense of first space / and the right place."

The key feature of loose blank verse poems like "Originally" is their subtle formality, which doesn't detract from the poem's message and may be hard to discern on an initial reading. Duffy organizes the poem into three stanzas of eight lines each, but beyond this, the structure is careful and understated, allowing the theme to emerge prominently.

• 1980s: Many Scots grow tired of Great Britain's conservative leadership, leading to increased support for the Scottish National Party. This party advocates for more self-governance for Scotland and reduced control from the British government in London.
  Today: While Scotland remains a key part of the United Kingdom, it operates its own parliament, managing domestic issues like law-making and taxation. Jack McConnell was appointed as Scotland's first minister in 2001.
• 1980s: Fewer than 2 percent of Scots can speak Gaelic, the dominant language before the British government promoted English as the official language throughout Great Britain. Over the centuries, Scottish-English evolved with diminishing Gaelic influence, becoming nearly unrecognizable to Scots by the late 1900s.
  Today: In efforts to preserve cultural pride in their language, many Scottish educators now encourage students to embrace traditional Scottish dialects. This is a bold linguistic decision that would have been discouraged or punished in previous decades.
• 1980s: Although Margaret Thatcher was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century, her popularity waned by the late 1980s. She resigned unexpectedly in 1990 following the controversial introduction of a community charge, or poll tax, which replaced property taxes in Scotland in 1989, and in England and Wales in 1990.
  Today: Prime Minister Tony Blair, once widely favored across the United Kingdom, faces growing criticism due to his strong alliance with U.S. President George W. Bush and his firm support for the U.S.-led war in Iraq, among other political matters, prompting many to call for his resignation.

• Trafalgar Square Books released an audiocassette of Duffy's poetry collection, The World's Wife, in 1999, the same year the book was published and shortlisted for a Forward Prize in the collections category. The poems in this collection are narrated from the viewpoints of the female counterparts of well-known men, including Sigmund Freud, King Kong, and the devil.

Sources

Duffy, Carol Ann, "Originally," in The Other Country, Anvil Press, 1990, p. 7.

Kerrigan, John, "Notes from the Home Front: Contemporary British Poetry," in Essays in Criticism, Vol. 54, No. 2, April 2004, p. 109.

Michelis, Angelica, " 'Me Not Know What These People Mean': Gender and National Identity in Carol Ann Duffy's Poetry," in The Poetry of Carol Ann Duffy: "Choosing Tough Words," edited by Angelica Michelis and Antony Rowland, Manchester University Press, 2003, p. 92.

Further Reading

Dowson, Jane, and Alice Entwistle, A History of Twentieth-Century British Women's Poetry, Cambridge University Press, 2005.

This detailed examination covers the significant contributions of women poets in twentieth-century Britain. It's a straightforward and engaging exploration of this often-neglected group of British authors. The book offers a thorough analysis of the cultural, literary, political, and personal influences that shaped these poets' creations. Section 10, "Dialogic Politics in Carol Ann Duffy and Others," specifically discusses Duffy's poetic contributions.

Duffy, Carol Ann, The Salmon Carol Ann Duffy: Poems Selected and New 1985–1999, Salmon Publishing, 2000.

This collection is an excellent resource for those wanting a comprehensive view of Duffy's body of work. It includes pieces from Standing Female Nude (1985), Selling Manhattan (1987), The Other Country (1990), Mean Time (1993), and The World's Wife (1999), along with four additional poems in a section called "Stray Poems." Duffy personally selected these poems, offering insight into the works she considers most significant. "Originally" is among the included poems.

Rees-Jones, Deryn, Carol Ann Duffy, Northcote House, 1999.

This analysis of Duffy's work from the 1980s and 1990s primarily explores themes of gender and identity, while also examining the evolution of her love poetry and her use of the dramatic monologue style. Rees-Jones presents a compelling argument for Duffy's innovative efforts to transform conventional topics, themes, and techniques in modern British poetry into clear personal, political, and social commentary.

Smith, Stan, "Suburbs of Dissent: Poetry on the Peripheries," in Southwest Review, Vol. 86, No. 4, 2001, pp. 533-51.

This extensive essay examines poets who have shifted away from traditional themes of "cozy" nationalism to explore feelings of alienation in supposedly "safe" suburban settings. The article's section "Getting Nowhere" discusses The Other Country and the experience of being a cultural hybrid, as depicted in Duffy's "Originally."