Carol Anne Duffy's poetry like quite a lot of modern poetry is not traditionally written. It does not rhyme and punctuation differs from how it would have been traditionally written. Also sentences do not start and end in orthodox places for example; in 'Valentine' sentences cross lines :-

Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,

This crossing of lines and paragraphs is more prominent in some other modern poetry and is not demonstrated particularly well in this set of poems.

The poems are odd in other ways. The titles of the poems are not remarkable in themselves but when you start to read the poems it becomes apparent that they are not written conventionally. The poet has used many abstract ideas in the poems. This is most noticeable in 'Valentine'. It starts off oddly with the line "Not a red ro

se or a satin heart." This is very untraditional as it is a blunt, forthright statement. The phrase is a stereotypical cliche of what most people imagine Valentines Day to be about. Duffy then proceeds to shred the cliche to pieces with her next line. "I give you an onion." This is very contrasting to the first statement because it is about as far as you can get from a romantic image.

None of Carol Anne Duffy's poems are difficult to understand but it is just that little hint of uncertainty which makes the reader slightly uneasy about what is actually happening.

'Stealing' is atypical because it is colloquial in style with the setting being the psychiatrist's chair. The colloquial style is accentuated by the line at the end of the poem; "You don't understand a word I'm saying, do you?" This line is directed at two places at once. The reader is asked, as a joke, because of the abnormality of the poem, and the psychiatrist is as

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 637
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)