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...
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.
inspirational teacher heart
I grew up in a bookless house - my parents didn't read poetry, so if I hadn't had the chance to experience it at school I'd never have experienced it. But I loved English, and I was very lucky in that I had inspirational English teachers, Miss Scriven and Mr. Walker, and they liked us to learn poems by heart, which I found I loved doing.
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
prayer
Poetry and prayer are very similar
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.
poet humans
Poets sing our human music for us.
girl daughter mother
Where I lived - winter and hard earth.I sat in my cold stone roomchoosing tough words, granite, flint,to break the ice. My broken heart -I tried that, but it skimmed,flat, over the frozen lake.She came from a long, long way,but I saw her at last, walking,my daughter, my girl, across the fields,In bare feet, bringing all spring's flowersto her mother's house. I swearthe air softened and warmed as she moved,the blue sky smiling, none too soon,with the small shy mouth of a new moon.
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.