The Bees

<p>‘Swooningly glorious’ <i>The Times</i><br><br>‘Indisputably her best volume’ <i>Sunday Times</i><br><br><i>The Bees</i> is Carol Ann Duffy’s first collection of poems as Poet Laureate. In it she uses her full poetic range: there are drinking songs, love poems, poems of political anger; there are elegies, too, for beloved friends, and – most movingly – the poet’s own mother.<br><br> Woven and weaving through the book is its presiding spirit: the bee. Sometimes the bee is Duffy’s subject, sometimes it strays into the poem, or hovers at its edge. In the end, Duffy’s point is clear: the bee symbolizes what we have left of grace in the world, and what is most precious and necessary for us to protect. <i>The Bees</i>, at once intimate and public, is a work of great power from one of our most cherished poets.</p>