The Full Text of “Recognition”
The Full Text of “Recognition”
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“Recognition” Introduction
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The speaker of Carol Ann Duffy's "Recognition" is a lonely middle-aged woman out grocery shopping. As she goes through the motions of the mundane task at hand, her mind bounces between self-deprecating thoughts about the woman she's become and memories of the romantic, carefree woman she was years ago. Contrasting that former happiness with her current misery and regret, the poem cautions against letting life "get away from" you. "Recognition" was published in Duffy's 1987 collection, Selling Manhattan.
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“Recognition” Summary
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People lose track of things, the speaker says, adding that she's allowed herself to get out of shape. She's had three children but she isn't close to any of them.
She can't really recall a time when her body didn't feel so heavy. It must have been years, she says. Now her face is puffy from carrying so much remorse.
When she puts on makeup, it just comes off. Loving her husband has become nothing more than a habit, the reasons why she loves him having disappeared into thin air. He becomes agitated, she says, before noting that she tried to cover all the basics in one run to the store.
It was silly to try to do this, she admits, but she'd been crying all morning. Now she's thinking about quiche (a kind of savory egg custard.) Years ago, a fair-haired boy had lifted her in his arms and promised her the entire world.
She says she remembered this while she was standing on the scale that morning (presumably to weigh herself), which is why she'd been crying (presumably because she'd gained weight). She then mentions shallots, or small onions (and a common quiche ingredient; readers might imagine her checking things off her grocery list). Mannequins (or pale, smooth-skinned women) were posing in a store window.
This made the speaker feel all blocked up and like her youth was gone. Squandered. She'd left her purse somewhere and moved her hands clumsily searching for it. The salesgirl stared at her without sympathy. She thought of a kind of red wine. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
She thinks of cheese and tissues. Then reminds herself that her memory is real, that she really did lay laughing in her undergarments in the moist grass. But this was years ago. Flustered, she hurried out of the store.
She came across her own reflection and saw a fretful, frumpy, middle-aged woman staring right back at her. Her reflection stared right at her and said she was sorry, so very sorry.
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“Recognition” Themes
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Aging, Relationships, and Regret
"Recognition" explores the way people can become unrecognizable to themselves as get older. The poem's speaker is a middle-aged woman experiencing a rush of emotional memories while grocery shopping. Her mind jumps around from the task at hand to thoughts about her children and a man she "love[s]" for reasons she no longer understands. The poem sharply juxtaposes her present misery with the joy she felt as a young woman. Recalling these happier times, she grows teary-eyed, "rush[es]" from the store, and "bump[s] into" her reflection in a mirror—which she seems not to recognize at first, as it bears no resemblance to her younger self. The poem shows how aging can bring the terrible "recognition" that life has "[gotten] away from one," and implicitly warns against the kind of complacency or acquiescence that brings "regret" down the line.
The speaker's "habit"-driven routine strikes her as terribly unfulfilling. She "do[es]n't even know" her own children, suggesting that, for whatever reason, she doesn't have a good relationship with them. Her husband/partner, meanwhile, she loves only "through habit," the "proof" having "evaporated" (or disappeared). In other words, she no longer knows why she loves this person.
She nonchalantly intersperses these sad details about her personal life with mundane comments on her shopping trip ("Quiche," Shallots"), implying that she has accepted this loneliness as part of her reality. That is, the revelation that she isn't close with her family is granted no more weight than the items on her grocery list.
Contrasting with this present dissatisfaction is the bright joy of her youth, which seems only to intensify her current misery. She remembers a time when "A blond boy swung [her] up / in his arms and promised the earth." That is, when they were young, this man (perhaps the same man she now loves out of "habit") swept her off her feet and made her believe in their future together. She has to insist to herself this moment "did happen," suggesting that it feels so distant now that it's hard to believe she was once this happy, hopeful young woman.
Flustered, she then runs outside and "bump[s] / into an anxious, dowdy matron" in a "mirror." This wording implies that she doesn't recognize herself at first—she's startled by this agitated, frumpy old woman staring back at her. She seems to be addressing herself in the last line of the poem; muttering "I'm sorry sorry sorry,' she finally 'Recogni[zes]" herself.
This "Recognition" of her own unhappiness—and her apology to herself—warns the reader against the kind of complacency that will result in "regret." This ending suggests that, if one isn't careful, life can quickly slip by, leaving only regrets for the opportunities one "let [...] go." By dramatizing the speaker's misery, the poem stresses the importance of not letting one's life (including one's loved ones) "get away."
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-32
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Aging and Womanhood
In addition to broadly illustrating the dangers of complacency and regret, "Recognition" nods toward the specific challenges that aging women can face in a world that prizes feminine youth and beauty. Despite having fulfilled many of the traditional expectations for women, including motherhood and marriage, the speaker is clearly miserable. She says that she doesn't "even know" her three children and that she loves her husband only out of "habit." The speaker also doesn't see herself reflected in the "creamy ladies" that "pose" in display windows and is treated without "compassion[]" by a younger "shopgirl." As a middle-aged woman, the poem implies, the speaker has been cast aside by much of society and confined to a dull, passionless existence of domestic drudgery. Yet in offering a glimpse into the speaker's mind, the poem insists that even "dowdy matrons" are complex human beings who have loved and lived deeply.
The poem suggests how women are often made to feel invisible and undesirable as they grow older. The speaker repeatedly criticizes her looks, saying, for example, that she struggles "to remember a time / when my body felt light." This is likely both a comment on how she metaphorically feels weighed down by the burdens of life and how she literally has gained weight over time.
She adds that her "face is swollen / with regrets" and, in her estimation, beyond help; she tries to look better by wearing "powder" but it won't stick to her skin. It seems she feels like there's no point in trying to improve her appearance with makeup.
The speaker says that the specific memory of a young man lifting her up "in his arms" also "came back to" her while she was standing "on the scales." This suggests that she was weighing herself when she suddenly thought of this romantic moment (though the plural "scales" might also refer to weighing produce at the grocery store). That she then "wept" perhaps suggests grief over the number on those scales—that is, "recognition" of the physical fact that she was no longer the young woman who could so easily be "swung" about by her lover.
Seeing reminders of youth upset her, the poem implies, because they remind her of her own age. Upon noticing a group of "creamy ladies" (models or mannequins) posing in a "window," the speaker herself feels "clogged and old" and laments the "waste" of her own life. She feels the young "shopgirl" gaping at her without any sympathy she fumbles for her purse, again implying the way that society tends to discard women over a certain age.
In the end, the speaker can't believe that the "dowdy matron" in the mirror is her own reflection, and she apologies for letting herself "go." The implication is that she's lost her chance for romance, excitement, and even simple "compassion" simply by getting older.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-2
- Lines 5-9
- Lines 14-24
- Lines 26-32
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Recognition”
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Lines 1-4
Things get away ...
... even know them."Recognition" begins with the speaker admitting that her life hasn't exactly turned out the way she'd hoped. "Things" have gotten away from her, she says, adding that she's "let" herself "go." In other words, she's stopped looking after her appearance. The "Things" that have gotten away from the speaker thus seem, in part, related to her looks and/or health.
The speaker then suddenly jumps to talking about her children:
Children? I've had three
and don't even know them.These three children, it seems, are more "things" that have gotten away from the speaker. Either she's literally not close with them or she doesn't "know" them in a deeper, more philosophical sense. The enjambment between lines 3 and 4 makes the revelation that the speaker doesn't know her children feel all the more sudden and abrupt.
Also note the diacope of the word "know" in lines 2 and 4: the speaker "know[s]" that she has stopped caring for her body, but she doesn't "know" her own children. This repetition might suggest that she's given up trying to look good because she doesn't feel good—that her unhappiness about her relationships has affected her ability to take care of herself.
The poem is written in free verse, allowing the reader to feel as if they're actually right there inside the speaker's head, listening to her interior monologue.
That said, the poem is still musical. Notice the way that long /o/ assonance ("go," "know," "don't") lends rhythm and intensity to these opening lines, for example, as does the subtle internal slant rhyme between "Children" and "know them."
The short, regular quatrains (four-line stanzas) also give the poem a certain predictability even as the speaker's thoughts shift around. This steady stanza form might evoke the way a person's life may look totally normal on the surface even as, internally, they're deeply out of sorts.
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Lines 5-8
I strain to ...
... put powder on, -
Lines 9-12
but it flakes ...
... all the essentials -
Lines 13-16
on one trip. ...
... promised the earth. -
Lines 17-20
You see this ...
... held a pose -
Lines 21-24
which left me ...
... Claret. I blushed. -
Lines 25-28
Cheese. Kleenex. ...
... flush, and bumped -
Lines 29-32
into an anxious, ...
... sorry sorry sorry.
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“Recognition” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Repetition
The poem uses various kinds of repetition to add momentum and emphasize certain words and ideas.
In the first stanza, for example, the repetition of "know" in lines 2 and 4 draws attention to the contrast between what the speaker does and doesn't "know": she "know[s]" she's out of shape, but she doesn't "know" her "children"—they're strangers to her.
The poem relies on frequent parallelism as well. Take lines 8-11, where the repetition of the format "I [...] but [...]" suggests that there's something similar about the speaker applying makeup that "flakes off" and loving a man "through habit" even as "the proof / evaporates." In each of these situations, the speaker presents something presumably good about her life—making an effort with her appearance, loving her husband—only to quickly undermine it:
[...] I put powder on,
but it flakes off. I love him,
through habit, but the proof
has evaporated. [...]Note, too, just how many sentences the speaker begins with the word "I." This reminds readers that they're listening to the speaker's internal monologue, getting a peek into her thoughts.
Those thoughts themselves are often repetitive, creating echoes across the poem that emphasize the speaker's despair. For example, the speaker repeats the word "Years" in lines 7 and 27. Each time, the word appears as its own sentence fragment, followed by a full-stop caesura and cut off from any kind of explanation:
Years. My face is swollen
[...]
laughing. Years. I had to rush out,The speaker clearly feels "Years" removed from a version of herself that makes any sense to her, from a version of herself she can "Recogni[ze]." Similarly, the polyptoton across lines 14 and 19 (the repetition of the root word "weep" in "weepy" and wept") calls readers' attention to just how miserable the speaker feels.
Finally, diacope and epizeuxis add intensity to the poem's final conclusion:
and stared at me. Stared
and said I'm sorry sorry sorry.The diacope of "stared" emphasizes the importance of the speaker finally recognizing what she's become: unhappy and unfulfilled in what should be the prime of her life.
Epizeuxis (the repetition of "sorry") then ends the poem dramatically, driving home the speaker's profound sense of regret.
Where repetition appears in the poem:- Line 2: “I’ve,” “know”
- Line 3: “I’ve”
- Line 4: “know”
- Line 5: “I”
- Line 7: “Years”
- Line 8: “I”
- Line 9: “but,” “I”
- Line 10: “but”
- Line 12: “I”
- Line 14: “weepy”
- Line 19: “wept”
- Line 24: “I”
- Line 26: “I”
- Line 27: “Years,” “I”
- Line 31: “and,” “stared,” “Stared”
- Line 32: “and,” “sorry sorry sorry”
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Alliteration
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Assonance
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Enjambment
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Juxtaposition
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"Recognition" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Evaporated
- Quiche
- Shallots
- Clogged
- Fumbled
- Shopgirl
- Gaped
- Claret
- Slip
- Dowdy matron
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(Location in poem: Lines 10-11: “but the proof / has evaporated”)
Ceased to exist; disappeared.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Recognition”
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Form
"Recognition" consists of 32 lines of free verse broken up into eight quatrains, or four-line stanzas.
The use of steady quatrains lends the poem a sense of orderliness and structure that's at odds with the speaker's mental state: she's overwhelmed, emotional, and distracted as she makes her way through the grocery store. Frequent enjambment between lines and across stanzas creates some tension within the poem's form. The poem's lines attempt to break free of their quatrain containers, reflecting the way the speaker's thoughts interrupt her mundane grocery trip.
Readers might also consider "Recognition" a dramatic monologue, the poet taking on the voice of a distinct character and addressing an unseen listener. That "Children?" in line 2 makes it seem like the speaker is having a convsersation with someone, though it's also possible that she's just talking to herself.
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Meter
The poem is written in free verse, so it doesn't use a regular meter. This is fitting for a poem that follows the inner workings of the speaker's mind. People's thoughts tend to be fragmented and associative—not perfectly measured and melodious! The poem's natural rhythms allow the reader to feel as if they're actually inside the speaker's mind.
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Rhyme Scheme
As a free verse poem, "Recognition" doesn't use a rhyme scheme. As with the poem's lack of meter, this lack of predictable rhyme creates a more natural and intimate tone, as if the reader is actually privy to the speaker's innermost thoughts, perceptions, and memories. Rather than the speaker telling or performing a narrative, this poem allows the reader to glimpse the speaker's thoughts as they flit around in time and settle on different subjects.
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“Recognition” Speaker
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The speaker of "Recognition" is a middle-aged woman out shopping for groceries. She's clearly unhappy with her physical appearance, and this unhappiness seems to be a reflection of the deep dissatisfaction she feels in her life and her relationships. She has "three [Children]" whom she hardly "know[s]," and though there is a man in her life whom she says she "love[s]," she's no longer sure why she loves him: "the proof / has evaporated," she says, adding that they're only still together out of "habit."
The speaker is "weepy" and self-deprecating, calling herself "Foolish" and "dowdy." She compares herself to "creamy ladies" (either models or mannequins) posing in a window who make her feel "clogged and old." She's so distracted by how unhappy she is that she forgets to bring her purse with her to the store and "fumble[s]" around looking for it while the checkout girl stares at her without sympathy.
Eventually, the speaker ends up rushing from the store in a "hot flush," overcome with emotion. She then bumps into her own reflection, which she doesn't even recognize as herself at first. She repeatedly apologizes to her reflection, ackownledging that she's let herself down.
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“Recognition” Setting
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The poem's setting is a grocery store. The first few stanzas aren't very clear about where the poem is taking place, but at the end of stanza 3/the beginning of stanza 4 the speaker says, "I tried to do all the essentials / on one trip." This, combined with various specific words such as "Quiche" in line 15, "Shallots" in line 19, "Claret" (a kind of red wine) in line 24, and "Cheese" and "Kleenex" in line 25 make it clear that the speaker is shopping for food and household supplies.
Yet because the poem jumps around a lot, it's difficult at times to get a handle on when and where events are actually happening. For instance, in lines 19-20 the speaker sees "creamy ladies h[olding] a pose" through a "window." This might suggest that the speaker saw women doing yoga or some other form of exercise on her way into the store, or it might imply that she catches sight of some mannequins while shopping. The poem lets the reader piece these snapshots together.
Likewise, there are moments in the poem that clearly take place in another time altogether. The speaker remembers a "blond boy" who held her "in his arms and promised the earth," and she later recalls "lay[ing] in [her] slip on wet grass, / laughing." These moments are snippets from "years" ago, when the speaker was young and happy.
In bouncing around like this, the poem evokes the speaker's fragmented state of mind and the power of memories to crop up and interrupt the present.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Recognition”
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Literary Context
"Recognition" appears in Carol Ann Duffy's second full-length poetry collection, Selling Manhattan (1987). Selling Manhattan won the 1988 Somerset Maugham Award, a major UK award for young authors. The book includes multiple dramatic monologues, including the frequently anthologized "Warming Her Pearls."
As the publisher, Pan Macmillan, writes, Selling Manhattan "give[s] voices to those who are usually voiceless." "Recognition" is a perfect example of this, as the speaker is a middle-aged woman who doesn't see herself reflected in the "creamy ladies" who "pose" around her and who is treated without "compassion[]" by a younger "shopgirl," rendering her isolated even in a public space with another woman. While the "dowdy matron" is so often the brunt of the joke in popular culture, this poem presents the world from a middle-aged woman's point of view and allows her to be a complex human being.
Duffy has cited numerous poets as early influences for her own work, including canonical Irish and English poets like W.B. Yeats and John Keats, as well as modernist poets including Aimé Césaire. A lesbian writer in an often conservative, male-dominated literary culture, Duffy herself has blazed trails in her exploration of women's and LGBTQ narratives in contemporary UK poetry.
Born to working-class parents in Scotland, in 2009 Duffy became the first woman, the first Scottish poet, and the first openly LGBTQ person to become Poet Laureate of the UK. Along with Seamus Heaney, she is now one of the most widely taught poets in UK schools and her work is renowned for its empathy and sharp-edged insights into contemporary life.
Historical Context
"Recognition" was published in 1987, but it doesn't overtly refer to historical events of the time. Instead, the poem deals with an insulated, domestic world in which the speaker is thinking about her relationships, her looks, and the groceries she's going to buy.
This limited scope perhaps suggests that one source of the speaker's "regret[]" is the way she's lived her life inside of certain societal expectations only to find herself unfulfilled and unhappy in middle age. In this way, the poem is a reflection of the feminist ideologies gaining traction in England throughout the 1970s and '80s.
During this time, books like Susan Faludi's Backlash examined the subtle (and not-so-subtle) ways in which society was reacting against the women's movement. Third-wave feminism, focused largely on identity and political power, began to emerge out of the second-wave feminism of the '60s. Duffy's work, with its interest in women's inner selves and in corners of working-class life often neglected by the literary world, reflects the tumultuous political environment in which she came of age.
The speaker of the poem isn't a specific character, but she also isn't Duffy herself (Duffy only has one child, and the speaker has three). That said, parts of "Recognition" may be informed by Duffy's relationship with the male poet Adrian Henri.
While she now openly identifies as a lesbian, at the age of 16 Duffy entered what would become a 12-year relationship with the much older Henri. Henri was a mentor and inspiration to the young Duffy, but he was also chronically unfaithful. The couple separated in 1982, and it's possible that the speaker's feelings of having squandered "Years" of their life reflect Duffy's own feelings about having stayed in a relationship with Henri for so long.
In any case, the speaker's mid-life realization that she is miserable and unrecognizable to herself reflects countless women's experiences of being pressured into a conventional mold of domesticity only to be left feeling as if their lives were "waste[d]."
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More “Recognition” Resources
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External Resources
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An Introduction to the Poet — Learn more about Duffy's life and career in this article by the Poetry Foundation.
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An Interview with Duffy for her 2009 Poetry Collection, Sincerity — An interview with Duffy for the Scottish Review of Books in which Duffy discusses her life, work, influences, and her role as Poet Laureate.
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Pan Macmillan Synopsis of Selling Manhattan — Read the publisher's synopsis for Selling Manhattan, the collection in which "Recognition" was published.
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A History of the Dramatic Monologue — A brief look at the history of the dramatic monologue, a form Duffy frequently uses for her poems, including "Recognition."
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Carol Ann Duffy
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