Carol Ann Duffy
Carol Ann Duffy
Dame Carol Ann Duffy DBE FRSLis a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain's Poet Laureate in May 2009. She is the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly LGBT person to hold the position...
children childhood
Having a child takes you back to all those parts of your own childhood that you had hidden away.
mother children being-a-mother
I always wanted a child. Being a mother is the central thing in my life.
children thinking enabling
I think poetry can help children deal with the other subjects on the curriculum by enabling them to see a subject in a new way.
children matter no-matter-what
Every day is a gift with a child, no matter what problems you have
machines who-we-are being-human
For me, poetry is the music of being human. And also a time machine by which we can travel to who we are and to who we will become.
memories inspiration imagination
The moment of inspiration can come from memory, or language, or the imagination, or experience - anything that makes an impression forcibly enough for language to form.
his-love love-poems donne
I still read Donne, particularly his love poems
thinking anxiety abuse
I think the dangers are different now. Our abuse of the planet and our resources is an anxiety
poet humans
Poets sing our human music for us.
prayer heartless helping
What do I haveto help me, without spell or prayer,endure this hour, endless, heartless, anonymous,the death of love?
laughing littles faces
As anyone who has the slightest knowledge of my work knows, I have little in common with Larkin, who was tall, taciturn and thin-on-top, and unlike him I laugh, nay, sneer, in the face of death. I will concede one point: we are both lesbian poets.
technology feelings texting
The poem is a form of texting... it's the original text. It's a perfecting of a feeling in language - it's a way of saying more with less, just as texting is.
writing shapes arriving
I see the shape of the poem before I start writing, and the writing is just the process of arriving at the shape.
thinking poet our-time
I like to think that I'm a sort of poet for our times.