Carol Ann Duffy
18 quotes
Biography
Dame Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, serving in this position until her term ended in 2019.
"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."
"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."
"When you have a child, your previous life seems like someone else's. It's like living in a house and suddenly finding a room you didn't know was there, full of treasure and light."
"There'll be what you might call a moment of inspiration – a way of seeing or feeling or remembering, an instance or a person that's made a large impression. Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning"
"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."
"If I felt, in the event of a royal wedding, inspired to write about people coming together in marriage or civil partnership, I would just be grateful to have an idea for the poem. And if I didn't, I'd ignore it."
"I still read Donne, particularly his love poems."
"I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it."
"It's always good when women win things in fiction because it tends to be more male-dominated, unlike poetry, which is more equal."
"Poetry and prayer are very similar."
"Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true. It could make something happen."
"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."
"You can find poetry in your everyday life, your memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just what's in your heart."
"If I felt, in the event of a royal wedding, inspired to write about people coming together in marriage or civil partnership, I would just be grateful to have an idea for the poem. And if I didn't, I'd ignore it."
"Christmas is taken very seriously in this household. I believe in Father Christmas, and there's no way I'd do anything to undermine that belief."
"Poetry, above all, is a series of intense moments - its power is not in narrative. I'm not dealing with facts, I'm dealing with emotion."
"I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way."
"Poets sing our human music for us."