The Bees by Carol Ann Duffy

Wonderful read.  Inspiring work.  There are some excellent and very good poems here (Bees, Politics, Poetry, The Female Husband, Virgil's Bees and Rings among them).  There are three poems I particularly like: Last Post, Mrs Schofield's GCSE and Atlas.

Last Post is a geat poem.  It is a genuinely worthy companion piece to Wilfred Owen's Dulce et decorem est pro patria mori, perhaps the greatest (certainly best known) poem of the First World War, from which Carol Ann Duffy quotes in her poem, commissioned by the BBC to mark the deaths of the last British soldiers who had fought in the 1914 - 1918 war.  Last Post will be read for generations to come.  It and Ms Schofield's GCSE will be reproduced in many antholgies in the years ahead. 

The bee metaphor may be a little overworked in places and unnecessary in others but that's a minor quibble.  The Bees is an accomplished collection, well worth reading; well worth buying.