Dreams Of Carol Ann

I have a strange cough, but no matter, we went to hear Carol Ann Duffy read last night for the second time in just over a year. This time in Haworth, though not at the Parsonage itself, as (I guess) they don't have a big enough space there for a poet laureate sized audience. They're having a Bronte festival of women's writing (sic) this weekend and this was the highlight. While Katrina Naomi read first, Carol Ann sat down next to L in the front row. L got a little red in the neck but handled it with aplomb - even making a moment of conversation before the introductions were made... CAD looked a little off colour, we all agreed having seen her very close to. A little grey. She sneezed once while reading, though no other evidence of a cold. And she said it was caused by 'little bits of Bible' in the air (we were assembled in a Baptist chapel...) The reading did not disappoint though, except for feeling about 10 minutes short to me. Maybe she was not feeling well, and wanted to get away early, I don't know, I felt a little bereft when she stopped and suddenly it was all over bar the signing. No refreshments, and no desire to stand in a queue (and L had got her to sign our copy of Rapture last time), so nothing to stay for. We came home with friend S and drank red wine.

Carol Ann is splendid, whatever might have ailed her last night. And her writing seems to get better and better. There's a kind of deep English vein now running through some of the work, a profound affection for history and tradition, and a fairly clear radical sentiment. Pub names, county names, Dutch elm disease, and the decimation of bee populations were all there. She did a few poems from The World's Wife again to start with, which are superb and funny and true, but I wonder if she's getting a bit tired of reading these, ten years on? She made some comment about not even knowing she wrote them any more... The ones about her mother and the newer ones just sang, lyrical, spare, strong. But I missed the passion of her love poems, which I'd heard her read some of last time. What stays with me most is the music of her work, the rhythm and cadence, and her terrific reading. I hope she has (will) made some recordings.

Last night I slept fitfully, with a multiplicity of short dreams, like poems, all of which seemed to feature Carol Ann. And when I was awake I was writing poems in my head, about her, and about the rain.

I am currently reading Jackie Kay's Red Dust Road, and am unable to shake off my sadness that these two are no longer together...