Beautiful & moving poetry for the real world' Jeanette Winterson Guardian Wonderful a poet alert to every sound & shape of language' Sunday Telegraph The Bees 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 &
- most movingly
- the poet's own mother Woven & 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 & what is most precious & necessary for us to protect The Bees at once intimate & public is a work of great power from one of our most cherished poets Swooningly glorious' The Times Indisputably her best volume' Sunday Times Duffy is magnificent grounded heartfelt dedicated to the notion that poetry can give us the music of life itself' Scotsman