Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at the Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain’s poet laureate in May 2009. She is the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly bisexual person to hold the position, as well as the first laureate to be chosen in the 21st century. Her poems address issues such as oppression, gender, and violence, in an accessible language.. “I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way,” she said. (Wikpedia)

The poem is the concluding poem in her collection The Other Country. The poetess at the start refers to “the other country”. As she belongs to Scotland, the country in question may be England. The poetess asks herself: ”The other country, is it anticipated or half-remembered?” Here she mingles past memories (half-remembered) with future-vision (anticipated).The language of the so-called other country is muffled by the rain. The poetess seems to imply that communication and expression was muffled naturally in the country. There was no instinctiveness of voice.The poetess has difficulty comprehending this language as she is creature of intuitive emotions. The rain falls all afternoon one autumn in England. It implies a kind of gloom descending on the autumn-afternoon , that is already short of sunshine. Therefore ‘rain’ though a positive symbol generally, is a negative one here. Though she heads for the country, she tries to put it aside work for the time being, at least in her mind. She picks up the basic amenities like her credit card and her coat that imparts her warmth; the rest she has it within her. She leaves these on the plane, as ‘the other country will provide her with financial security and shelter. The rest she has within her (in the form of memories).

The people there are well- known to one, though one ‘sees’ them everyday but do not ‘look’ at them. That explains the line:’ Their faces are photographs/on the wrong side of your eyes. The ‘photographs’ functions like memories that exist, but are not apprehended. People are caught in the vicious circle of logic and reasoning there, even as the boy at the bar poses the question if Man could actually land on the moon. Though proven in 1969,the poet answers strongly in the negative; in fact the answer is a triumphant affirmation of instinct over reason. Logic is relegated to creativity (A moon like an orange drawn by a child.), and imaginitivity (You watch it peel itself into the sea.)

In the midst of sleep, the carpentry wakes up the speaker. She finds herself in an unfamiliar place all of a sudden. Subsequently, a painting that has been ‘lost’ due to its confinement into the room for thirty years renders the room her own. Note that acknowledgment comes from identification with the physical surrounding and not from within. The painting is in a way a metaphor for the poetess herself confined to a claustrophobic atmosphere. The phrase ’thirty years’ echoes the same. This may allude to the fact that people identify her with the sexuality of her anatomy, and not the anatomy of her mind, being a bisexual. ’The other country’ may be the stereotype she is forced to conform to, regardless of her own preferences pertaining to sexuality/gender. Then the realization dawns that she has to switch back to the mechanical routine of her work: “You go to your job, right at the old hotel, left,/then left again.“ The job is another dry/logical endeavor based on instructions as exemplified in the above verse. The affirmation: “You love this job.” is rather a form of self-consolation: the falsification of the truth. The poet finds no meaningful passage of time. The passing of time seems to be regulated by external sounds:

Apt sounds
mark the passing of the hours. Seagulls. Bells. A flute
practising scales.

The line:” Then suddenly you are lost but not lost” reveals that the poetess is lost mentally and not physically. She embarks on a flight of the imagination She delves into her imagination, where “six swans vanish/under your feet.”

Then all of a sudden the truth sinks in…the certainity of the place dawns in. The lights turn on, and the scent is there in the air. The speaker apprehends the place through her primary sensory perceptions. The stark realization that you are there in the other country for a moment drives her back to the typical routine:

And then a desk. A newspaper. A window. English rain.

© Rukhaya MK 2010

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