Essays on Carol Ann Duffy

December 23, 1955, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Poet, Playwright

• The World's Wife
• Standing Female Nude
• The Bees

• "Edinburgh is my favourite city. We'll be doing a lot of children's theatre and galleries."
• "It's always good when women win things in fiction because it tends to be more male-dominated, unlike poetry, which is more equal."
• "I think the dangers are different now. Our abuse of the planet and our resources is an anxiety."

23 December 1955 (age 66)

Carol Ann Duffy is a British poet and playwright. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, resigning in 2019. She is the first woman, the first Scottish-born poet and the first known lesbian poet to hold the position.

“Little Women, Big Boys”, “Love Poems”, “Rapture”, “Sincerity”, “Standing Female Nude”, “Take My Husband”, “The Bees”, “The Hat”, “The Other Country”, “The Tear Thief”, “The World’s Wife”

Duffy's poetry mainly engages such topics as love, gender, oppression, and violence. Her work explores both everyday experience and the rich fantasy life of herself and others.

Duffy is both serious and humorous, often writing in a mischievous, playful style - in particular, she plays with words as she explores the way in which meaning and reality are constructed through language.

“I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way.”
“The stars are filming us for no one.”
“Better off dead than giving in; not taking what you want.”