Latest version--

Duffy in Places



"Duffy in Places," a series of sketches by Adrian Henri
of Carol Ann Duffy made between 1978 and 1981


In Ottakar's, Basingstoke, Betjeman rates
a whole shelf. I pick up a slim Larkin
and Carol Ann's Selected Poems,
remember her in Mount St., Liverpool,
a slight figure in Adrian's larger shadow,
captured in his haiku or sketched
windswept near the Eiffel Tower or
on the Staten Island Ferry, a dark-
haired girl who brought me coffee laced
with connie onnie in a thick mug
-- in retrospect, a rocket in a jamjar.
Later, in Ludlow, a bookshop stuffed
with Housman; I read Duffy under
blossoms as the caretaker locks
the Castle for the night. A milkmaid
fetches revolution to yeoman farmers.

Christopher T. George

"connie onnie" is Liverpudlian for condensed milk. Probably superfluous information for Yo Liverpool members.


Earlier version:

Carol Ann Duffy in Places

In Ottakers, Basingstoke, Betjeman rates
a whole shelf. I pick up a slim Larkin
and Carol Ann Duffy's Selected Poems,
remember her in Mount St., Liverpool,
a slight figure in Adrian's large shadow,
captured in his haiku or sketched by him
windswept with Eiffel Tower behind her,
and on the Staten Island Ferry, a dark-
haired girl who brought me coffee laced
with connie onnie in a thick mug
-- in retrospect, a rocket in a jamjar.
Later, in Ludlow, I find a bookshop
stuffed with Housman; I read Duffy
under blossoms as the caretaker locks
the Castle for the night; a milkmaid
fetches revolution to the yeoman farmers.

Christopher T. George