---
product_id: 12163180
title: "The World's Wife: Poems Paperback – April 9, 2001"
brand: "carol ann duffy"
price: "$41"
currency: NZD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.nz/products/12163180-the-worlds-wife-poems-paperback-april-9-2001
store_origin: NZ
region: New Zealand
---

# The World's Wife: Poems Paperback – April 9, 2001

**Brand:** carol ann duffy
**Price:** $41
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** The World's Wife: Poems Paperback – April 9, 2001 by carol ann duffy
- **How much does it cost?** $41 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.nz](https://www.desertcart.nz/products/12163180-the-worlds-wife-poems-paperback-april-9-2001)

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- carol ann duffy enthusiasts

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## Description

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## Images

![The World's Wife: Poems Paperback – April 9, 2001 - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71azxHf6RrL.jpg)
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## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    New voices
  

*by E***Y on Reviewed in the United States on December 15, 2008*

In "The World's Wife," Duffy deftly reworks tales from myths, fables, the bible, popular culture, literature and history. Some popular stories are reexamined through the eyes of a female witness, as with "Pilate's Wife," "Mrs. Darwin, " "Mrs. Sisyphus" and "Anne Hathaway." Others are modernized; In "Mrs. Faust," Faust and his wife are a pair of yuppies collecting degrees, computers and cell phones. A few stories, like "Queen Kong", are reimagined with a female protagonist replacing the male. The poetry is as diverse as the personae, with voices ranging from lingering, dreamy and dramatic to hard, clipped and succinct.The World's Wife lets previously unheard women speak. Their voices are not always what readers expect from a lyric speaker, for how often is deep emotion examined through rhyming slang for tits, or the nicknames for a penis?  Yet when Duffy calls a modern wife frustrated by her husband's discovery of Viagra "Mrs. Rip Van Winkle," or a contemporary-voiced woman whose husband works mindlessly and ceaselessly "Mrs. Sisyphus," Duffy reveals that their personal struggles are not theirs alone.  Their troubles have resonance, and echo through history, literature and myth---even though in the past it may have been left unspoken.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Female gaze
  

*by R***S on Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2019*

This book is the running definition of ‘female gaze’ in literature. Duffy takes stories like the raising of Lazarus, or the fall of Icarus, or even Shakespeare’s bestowment of his ‘second best bed’ to his wife, and retells them from a female perspective. In other poems, she transforms male-oriented stories to female: Pope Joan and Queen Kong being examples. And within this premise, she examines the one-sided puritanical attitudes of relationships, the demonization of female biology, and strikes at the literary patriarchy with humor and devastating seriousness. This is a lovely collection that wisely avoids striking the same note over and over but instead varies from control (ie,  Eurydice WANTING Orpheus to turn and look and free her), to sexuality (Little Red Riding Hood as sexual awakening) to a dismay at the male animal (Sisyphus’s wife agog at her husband’s persistence). Quite the collection.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4.0 out of 5 stars







  
  
    Four Stars
  

*by M***R on Reviewed in the United States on June 7, 2016*

Carol Ann Duffy's poetry is provocative and entertaining.

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*Product available on Desertcart New Zealand*
*Store origin: NZ*
*Last updated: 2026-02-19*