Blog Post #3

Standing Female Nude - Carol Ann Duffy

“little man, you’ve not the money for the arts I sell”

After completing Duffy’s Standing Female Nude, I was impressed by how much meaning was coated into this 30 line poem. I had to read it over a few times to develop my own interpretation of the writing. At first I took the poem as it was literally written: a woman standing bare as a male paints her. Now I realize the significance of this naked woman, for she is standing as she is in front of the male. She is brave; she exposes herself as she is to male as he tries to paint her upon his canvas. He puts a lot of effort into this painting, and gets frustrated with her easily for she does not stay still enough for him. When he is asked why he does this, he responds “I have to. There’s no choice”. I found this to be quite comical because he claims that he is being forced into painting her. He is forced to create art, when most women would kill to be granted permission to create art. He sees this as a chore. The narrator found humor in this too, for she smiles and states that artists take themselves too seriously. Hours go by and the painting is complete. The painting does not look like her.

In line 3, Duffy writes “he drains the color from me”. The way I took this is that he is trying to depict her upon canvas, but fails capture her for who she is as an individual. As much as the male claims to understand the female, they do not. Man's depiction of women does not reflect how a woman really is.

The best part of this whole poem is that the man is relying on the woman to make a name for himself. He is relying on her to give himself something to draw. He is relying on her to stay still so that his painting can come out properly. Although the man held the paint brush, the narrator still had full control over his painting.

Upon looking into more information of Carol Ann Duffy, I came across this youtube video of her expressing some of her ideas of women empowerment! Enjoy.