The Love Poem

Context of 'The love poem’

Let's dive into the biographical and literary context of this poem!

Biographical context

Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet. In 1983 Duffy won the National Poetry Competition, and in 2009 she was appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, becoming the first woman to receive the position since its creation in 1616. Her collection Standing Female Nude (1985) established her as a key figure in poetry.

In a 2013 article, Duffy highlighted how all of the poems in her collection Rapture were wholly biographical (The Guardian). Duffy’s own experience as a gay woman has influenced her approach to love in her work. She often subverts traditional expectations of relationships and romance in her poems. 'The Love Poem’ both examines how to write a love poem and express one’s feelings for another, and the influence of the famous love poems of the past on love poetry today.

Literary context

The style of 'The Love Poem' is defined by modernism, as its fragmented structure does not follow a regular meter, as expected from traditional love poetry. ‘The Love Poem’ is part of Duffy’s 2005 poetry collection Rapture, which contains a range of poems written in different forms and styles, following the story of a love affair. To an extent, the poetry collection is a modern-day sonnet sequence. However, instead of being made up of sonnets, the collection consists of various poems in different forms, styles, and structures.

‘The Love Poem’ analysis

Let's look at the poem itself, now.

Title

The poem’s title is simple and self-explanatory. 'The Love Poem' immediately indicates to the reader that the poem will focus on the topic of love. However, the simplicity of the title also suggests a lack of creativity as the poet struggles to come up with a title which evokes imagery of love or admiration, such as ‘She Walks in Beauty’ (Lord Byron, 1814) or ‘You say you love; but with a voice’ (John Keats, 1817). The title also contrasts with the complexity of the poem itself which is dominated by enjambment, as the poet struggles to find the right words or structure to express their love.

Form

The poem is written in free verse, with an irregular structure and rhyme scheme. Its use of quotes from other famous love poems produces a collage-like effect.

Structure

Throughout the poem we see the poet struggle to convey her feelings, underpinned by Duffy’s use of enjambment to create a free-flowing yet fragmented rhythm which stops and starts.

The poem consists of three twelve-line stanzas, each opening with a subordinate clause and closing with an end-stopped line. This structure creates the idea that the poet is attempting to write a love poem, scrapping their work and starting again. During the course of the poem, the narrator goes through a number of thought processes regarding how to present their feelings.

Stanza one

In this stanza the narrator struggles to start their poem, evident through the enjambment between lines. This use of enjambment indicates that the narrator is struggling to construct their poem and convey their feelings.

A comparison is drawn between famous love poems and 'modern love poems'. The narrator highlights how they don’t want their love poem to appear as a copy, deciding that they won’t state 'thou shalt feel love', as this has already been used by former great poets.

Stanza two

In the second stanza, the narrator appears to be stuck on what to say, unable to conjure up the right thoughts to write a poem. The opening line of the poem 'till love gives in and speaks' indicates that the narrator is waiting for their feelings to 'give in' and form the right words. The heavy use of lines from previous love poems in this stanza further highlights how the narrator is struggling to find the right, unique words to express what they're feeling.

Stanza three

In the final stanza, the narrator begins again, opening with another subordinate clause. Here, some of the direct quotations from previous poems stand out more than in previous stanzas, most notably 'O my America! My new-found land' - from John Donne’s ‘To His Mistress Going to Bed’ (1633).

Poetic devices

Let's explore the poetic devices used in 'The Love Poem'.

Enjambment

Enjambment is used throughout the majority of the poem, to create a fragmented, yet free-flowing rhythm. This rhythm is similar to a stream-of-consciousness, as the narrator stumbles through their thought process while constructing the poem. For instance, in the second half of the first stanza, Duffy writes;

The enjambment between 'come live' and 'with me-' creates a fragmented rhythm, indicating that the narrator is hesitant in their request and confession of love. Even though the sentence 'come live with me' is an imperative, the enjambment takes away its forcefulness, further indicating that the narrator is uncertain of how to write a love poem.

End-stopped lines

At the end of each stanza, Duffy utilises end-stopped lines to break up the free-flowing structure within the stanza itself. For instance, the second stanza ends with;

The use of end-stopped lines separates each stanza, indicating that the narrator is restarting the poem each time.

‘The Love Poem’ Language devices

Let's look at the language devices in the poem.

Simile

Duffy makes use of similes in each of her stanzas. Comparative language is common across romantic poetry, particularly comparisons to the natural world in the context of the literary movement of romanticism.

In the final stanza, the poem reflects on love as 'all in the mind', captured by 'the writer’s hand', expressed by the simile;

This simile implies that, by writing a love poem, the narrator intends to capture their emotions in verses which can be learned and recited; in effect, 'like a prayer’. The religious connotations suggest that the narrator perceives their love as a form of worship.

Personification

Personification is used to great effect at the start of the poem’s first two stanzas;

And,

Through personifying love, Duffy adds human aspects to an abstract noun, creating a more real image of love in our minds, rather than a purely conceptual one. Moreover, by bringing this abstract concept to life Duffy gives power to it, implying that the narrator may be battling with their emotions to create a love poem. The emotion of love refuses to give in and speak, despite the narrator's attempts to capture their feelings on paper.

Intertextuality

Intertextuality is a notable technique in 'The Love Poem'. Duffy's continuous references to famous love poems through her use of direct quotes and allusions, highlights how the narrator feels the influence of traditional romantic poetry, and is struggling to break its mould and subvert traditional expectations.

The phrases in the poem taken from previous works include:

William Shakespeare's 'Sonnet 130' (1609):

Elizabeth Barrett Browning's 'Sonnet 43' (1850):

John Donne's 'To His Mistress Going to Bed' (1654):

And, 'The Song of Solomon' (The Bible):

By referencing such a variety of traditional love poems, Duffy highlights their lasting influence on our own perception of love and relationships.

Tone and imagery of ‘The Love Poem’

A frustrated tone is present in the poem, as the narrator struggles to convey their love to an unknown addressee.

This frustrated tone is most noticeable through the poet’s use of enjambment. Although the lack of end-stopped lines allows the poem to flow, the pauses as one line continues onto another suggest that the poet is struggling to find the right words. This fragmentation results in a tone of frustration.

The repetition of 'till love' at the opening of each stanza creates the idea that the narrator is beginning the poem over and over again, trying to get it right. The presence of references to previous love poetry indicates that the frustrated tone of the poem has developed from the narrator’s continued, yet failed, attempts to not mimic traditional love poems. Famous verses continuously sneak into their work, highlighting how the poet struggles to construct their own unique expression of love.

Romantic imagery

The poem’s varied references to previous works make it challenging to pinpoint specific imagery. However, there is a general semantic field of nature which will be discussed as one of the poem’s key themes. Another image present throughout the poem is love.

Love

As expected with a love poem, imagery associated with love is present throughout. At the opening of each verse love is mentioned directly (‘till love…’). Moreover, it is alluded to more subtly in the second verse with body parts associated with the emotion of love; ‘dear heart’, ‘love lips’, and ‘kissing a line’, which evoke images of passionate physical love. There is also a combination of animal imagery and love in the final stanza.

The image of a moth seeking out a star, or light, highlights how love can be a driving instinctual force. The moth naturally searches for light, and is drawn to it without reason. Love can also have this effect, causing us to do things blindly.

Themes in ‘The Love Poem’

Let's look at the main themes.

Love

As with the majority of Duffy’s poetry, love is a key theme in ‘The Love Poem’. The theme is deconstructed and re-assessed throughout the poem, as the poet struggles to find a way to convey their love that doesn’t parallel the work of earlier poets.

Immortalisation

Rapture is about an affair; this poem is a part of that collection. Throughout 'The Love Poem' there are indications that the affair has come to an end. This is confirmed by the collection's final poem 'Over'.

In the first stanza of 'The Love Poem', Duffy references 'an epitaph'. This noun brings forth connotations of death, and the memorialisation of it. An 'epitaph' on a gravestone will remain for a long time, indicating that Duffy is constructing her poem, and poetry collection, to capture a moment which has now passed, with a view to immortalising it.

This is further indicated by the references to previous love poems which the reader may be familiar with. The presence of lines from these poems in Duffy’s own work suggests that they are, to an extent, immortal - as the words used to express the love of poets such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning and William Shakespeare still have influence today. The presence of these works in a contemporary context highlights the immortal nature of the poet’s works.

Nature

Imagery associated with nature is present throughout the poem, reflective of the common theme of the natural world in romanticism.

A semantic field of the natural world is evident; ‘high cloud’, ‘pool’, ‘love’s light’, ‘a garden’, ‘new-found land’ and ‘the star’. This highlights how the narrator is influenced by previous, more traditional, love poems. It also underpins how love is wide-reaching, embodied in everything around us, not just our internal emotions. The broadness of love, created through the theme of nature and imagery relating to it, is possibly a cause of the narrator’s struggle to convey their feelings in a single poem.