‘In Bed with Vermeer’

‘In Bed with Vermeer’

In the title poem of her first collection, Standing Female Nude (1998), Carol Ann Duffy explicitly reverses the male gaze. But where Duffy’s feminist female model sees – and sees through – the male artist and the way he objectifies and misrepresents her, the poetry of Helen Farish, while just as alive to the challenges of writing as a woman, is prepared to recognize not only the compromises but also the freedoms and possibilities inherent in mor…