Blog Post #2-Standing Female Nude

Carol Ann duffy

 

 

 

Standing Female Nude by Carol Ann Duffy really stood out to me because I felt this poem can be interpreted in many ways. At first, I could not tell if she was happy with her life, sad, a little twisted. Throughout the poem she laughs at the artist who is just doing his job, which confuses him and this is the part where I was not sure if she was a little twisted or not.
It seems as though she is a light spirit, "these artists take themselves too seriously". It also seems as though she enjoys her life in which most would be devestated to have, "At night I fill myself with wine and dance around the bars."
As she teases him, though, she sympathizes with him. "Both poor, we make a living how we can". When the Queen passes and sees the work the artists has done and she murmurs "magnificent" and again the woman laughs. I believe she is laughing at the irony of it all. As she says in her poem she is a prostitute and she is even getting paid to get this naked portrait painted of herself, yet the "bourgeoisie will coo at such an image of a river-whore".
I enjoyed this poem, but at first I thought the woman in the poem seemed a little crazy, but really I think she is making light of a situation in which she was living in.