28. Steam

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we read through the twenty-seventh poem in the collection, 'Steam', focusing in particular on: (i) the shifting nature of time ("Not long ago", "Quite recently", "Say a matter of months"; (ii) the diaphaneity of steam, where what you see isn't always quite what you get ("vanished", "appeared, rubbed itself out"); (iii) the description of the light as "sly, thirsty, silvery"; and (iv) the solidity of the hand at the end of the poem ("shockingly there, not a ghost at all").

Course

In this course, Professor John McRae (University of Nottingham) explores Carol Ann Duffy’s 1993 collection, ‘Mean Time'. After an introductory module in which we think about the poetry of Carol Ann Duffy in general and the collection as a whole – and especially the implications of its title – the course continues with a reading and analysis of each of the thirty-nine poems in the collection, one by one.

Lecturer

John McRae is Special Professor of Language in Literature Studies and Teaching Associate in the School of English at Nottingham University, and holds Visiting Professorships in China, Malaysia, Spain and the USA. He is co-author of The Routledge History of Literature in English with Ron Carter, and also wrote The Language of Poetry, Literature with a Small 'l' and the first critical edition of Teleny by Oscar Wilde and others.