Rapture

Summary

Following the arc of a love affair from first rapture through habit and longing to eventual breakdown, this collection turns the private experience of romantic love into a sequence of lyric poems that feel both deeply personal and broadly recognizable. Duffy writes with great accessibility without sacrificing emotional depth, and the sequence holds its formal coherence lightly, moving between tenderness and heartbreak with characteristic clarity. Her later appointment as the UK's first female Poet Laureate confirmed her importance to the broader reading public.