Polly Clark reviews New Selected Poems 1984-2004 by Carol Ann Duffy

It is less the range and quantity of poems that is revealed in this comprehensive selection of Carol Ann Duffy's work, than the sheer number of stories. This book is an encyclopedia of minutely compressed novels: the reader's head spins with the exuberant voices of psychopaths, lovers, depressed dolphins and mischievous wives, each at a critical point in their life's journey, each with a compelling back-story revealed in glimpses.

The enthusiasm for narrative and character is plain in Duffy's writing from her very first book: in 'Girl Talking' a child narrates in childish terms the terrifying details of what appears to be a back street abortion that goes fatally wrong, whilst one of Duffy's most famous poems 'Standing Female Nude' recreates the harsh colourful life of nineteenth century Paris, and the ways of getting by that painters and prostitutes must find.

Duffy's hallmark is the distinctive monologue of her characters: sometimes they explain themselves, as in 'Warming Her Pearls', sometimes they are highly unreliable narrators, such as the banal-voiced anti hero of 'Psychopath'. In these early poems, what is most touching is the voice that knows more than itself: the trapped exhibits of 'Dolphins' may not know much of how they came to be in the cramped pools of a dolphinarium, but they sense that 'we will die here'. The outsider brought to life in 'Foreign' is emblematic of Duffy's concerns: many lives are so outrageous as to be almost unbelievable even to the person living them, and yet those lives are lived and they bring a weary wisdom.

But while Duffy is not afraid of tackling the grimmest of subjects: murder, violence, abuse, her poems are always very much alive, bursting with exuberant language and an irrepressible love of life. Stories are everywhere for Duffy, and she is just as comfortable with the lives of animals or fictional characters as with people. One of the most compelling of the early poems, 'Money Talks' is a monologue by filthy lucre itself and 'Miss Havisham' indicates the direction which Duffy's poetic interests will take: loss, love and sorrow in a female outsider are themes which reach their height in 'The World's Wife', possibly her most famous book.

The effect of all these stories one after another can be dizzying for the reader. From time to time one searches for a poem that doesn't inhabit a world of masks and characters. Poems which are not monologues are rare in the early books, but there is a smattering of them later in this collection, especially among the 'Other Poems'. Curiously, these poems, such as 'A Child's Sleep' often seem to lack the verve of the more familiar Duffy poem: without the discipline of conforming to an invented voice, the poet sometimes slips into slighter or more sentimental writing.

The collection builds to Duffy's tour de force: 'The Laughter of Stafford Girl's High' a novella in verse detailing the subversive effects of an outbreak of laughter at a girl's school. Perhaps it is in this poem where Duffy's interest in the narrative meshes with the full range of her talents of invention: a set of vividly realised cameos brings to life a passionate love story, two deaths and a realisation that a repressive world has gone forever - leaving one girl, the briefly mentioned 'Carolann', almost overwhelmed by the desire to join in with the 'feasting on air' that is living and laughter.

New Selected Poems 1984-2004 (Picador) £14.99

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