тАШBeautiful and moving poetry for the real worldтАЩ Jeanette Winterson, Guardian
тАШWonderful . . . a poet alert to every sound and shape of languageтАЩ Sunday Telegraph
The Bees is Carol Ann DuffyтАЩs 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, and тАУ most movingly тАУ the poetтАЩs own mother.
Woven and weaving through the book is its presiding spirit: the bee. Sometimes the bee is DuffyтАЩs subject, sometimes it strays into the poem, or hovers at its edge. In the end, DuffyтАЩs point is clear: the bee symbolizes what we have left of grace in the world, and what is most precious and necessary for us to protect. The Bees, at once intimate and public, is a work of great power from one of our most cherished poets.
тАШSwooningly gloriousтАЩ The Times
тАШIndisputably her best volumeтАЩ Sunday Times
тАШDuffy is magnificent, grounded, heartfelt, dedicated to the notion that poetry can give us the music of life itselfтАЩ Scotsman