read this

Bought Carol Anne Duffy's Feminine Gospels for Bex yesterday. It contains a fantastic poem which a lot of you may know but which I had somehow missed called The Laughter of Stafford Girls' High. It's amazing. Seriously. You must all read it. Hence, I'm posting it up here. However, because it's rather long, and because CAD isn't really that famous, because, well, most contemporary poet's just aren't, I can't find it on the net. Therefore I have to transcribe it myself. Therefore you're getting it in parts. Fortunately, it comes in parts (seven, although this, the first, is the longest, so I may post more than one at once henceforth). Here's part one (abject apologies in advance for screaming typos):

The Laughter of Stafford Girls' High

It was a girl in the Third Form, Carolann Clare,
who, bored with the lesson, the rivers of England -
Brathay, Coquet, Crake, Dee, Don, Goyt,
Rothay, Tyne, Swale, Tees, Wear, Wharfe . . .
had passed a note, which has never been found,
to the classmate in front, Emily Jane, a girl,
who adored the teacher, Miss V. Dunn MA,
steadily squeaking her chalk on the board -
Allen, Clough, Duddon, Feugh, Greta, Hindburn,
Irwell, Kent, Leven, Lowther, Lune, Sprint . . .
but who furtively opened the folded note,
torn from the back of the King James Bible, read
what was scribbled there and laughed out loud.

( It was a miserable, lowering winter's day... )