Warming Her Pearls by CAROL ANN DUFFY

Warming Her Pearls

BY CAROL ANN DUFFY

Next to my own skin, her pearls. My mistress

bids me wear them, warm them, until evening

when I'll brush her hair. At six, I place them

round her cool, white throat. All day I think of her,

resting in the Yellow Room, contemplating silk

or taffeta, which gown tonight? She fans herself

whilst I work willingly, my slow heat entering

each pearl. Slack on my neck, her rope.

She's beautiful. I dream about her

in my attic bed; picture her dancing

with tall men, puzzled by my faint, persistent scent

beneath her French perfume, her milky stones.

I dust her shoulders with a rabbit's foot,

watch the soft blush seep through her skin

like an indolent sigh. In her looking-glass

my red lips part as though I want to speak.

Full moon. Her carriage brings her home. I see

her every movement in my head.... Undressing,

taking off her jewels, her slim hand reaching

for the case, slipping naked into bed, the way

she always does.... And I lie here awake,

knowing the pearls are cooling even now

in the room where my mistress sleeps. All night

I feel their absence and I burn.

 

About The Poet

Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan and was appointed Poet Laureate in 2009. She is the first openly LGBT poet (Duffy is bisexual) to hold this position.

Duffy's simplistic language and clear use of poetical techniques, such as metaphor in her poem Valentine where she compares love to an onion, has made her a popular choice on the school curriculum. Duffy has acted as a political poet, particularly since she was appointed poet laureate, her first poem as laureate was a sonnet written in response to the MP expense scandal. She has also worked within the tradition of war poets, for instance, her poem "Last Post" commissioned by the BBC to honor the deaths of two of the last three surviving WW1 veterans made explicit references to Wilfred Owen's "Duce et Decorum Est."

Sexuality and gender are especially prevalent within her work. In "Warming Her Pearls," she tells the story of a lady's maid in love with her mistress. Her book The World's Wife is particularly subversive, the collection retelling the stories of famous men from the eyes of their wives and lovers giving voice to traditionally voiceless women such as Shakespeare's wife in Ann Hathway, and new perspectives to old stories such as the resurrection of Lazarus in Mrs Lazarus.

About the Poem

An allusive poem that also strikes a strong note of radical revolt against class division as part of its Cinderella-esque tale of a young woman. The narrator is given the job by her rich mistress of wearing the woman’s expensive pearls to warm them up so that they are not cold against her old skin when she puts them around her neck.

“Warming Her Pearls” is the story, told by the maid, of the deep feelings she has towards her mistress. Whether the feelings be the envy of her mistress, her wealth and lifestyle, or in fact a lesbian obsession. The maid is dressing her mistress in readiness for a ball and the poem opens with an ungrammatical sentence “Next to my own skin, her pearls”. This emphasises the “my” and “her pearls” and the maid's desire for the pearls. It also gives a feeling of intimacy and closeness with the maid getting pleasure from the touch of her mistress’s pearls against her bare flesh. Sensuality and sexuality continue throughout the poem “wear them, warm them”, “my slow heat entering each pearl”, “…beautiful. I dream…picture her…”, “red lips” and “feel their absence and burn”.

Obsession can be seen by the maid imagining her mistress dancing and puzzling over “my faint persistent scent”. The smell of the maid’s cheaper perfume on the dress that she has worn is unknown to her mistress, whether it be in envy of her mistress or to feel the material that has been close to her mistress’s skin next to hers. Sexual ambiguity comes toward the end of the poem with “her slim hand reaching for the case, slipping naked into bed”. Is the maid imagining her mistress putting her pearls to bed in their case or, the more probable, her mistress slipping naked into bed? Similarly “I dream about her in my attic bed” can be questioned. Is the maid dreaming about her mistress while in bed or dreaming that her mistress is in her bed? The sensuality cools in the last stanza with the pearls cooling. This however intensifies the feeling of obsession when the poem ends “I burn”.