Carol Ann Duffy

Carol Ann Duffy
Occupation	Poet
Nationality	British
Subject	Literature
Notable awards	OBE 1995 CBE 2002 Poet Laureate 2009
Spouse	Ishteyak Hannon and Dan Townley (2004)
Children	Ella (1995)
Relatives	May Black (Mother) died 5th October 1996, Frank Duffy (Father) Lives in Glasgow

Carol Ann Duffy, CBE (born 23 December 1955) is a poet, playwright, freelance writer and current Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, she grew up in Staffordshire and graduated in philosophy from Liverpool University in 1977.

Duffy was awarded an OBE in 1981, and a CBE in 2002. She now resides in Manchester and is professor of poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University's Writing School. She succeeded Andrew Motion as Poet Laureate on 1 May 2009 and is the first female and first Scot to hold that position.

Background

Carol Ann Duffy was born to Frank Duffy and May Black in Glasgow as the eldest child of the family, and has four brothers. She moved to Staffordshire at the age of four. Her father worked as a fitter for English Electric, stood as a parliamentary candidate for the Labour party and managed Stafford football club in his spare time. Raised Catholic, she was educated at Saint Austin Roman Catholic Primary School, St. Joseph's Convent School and Stafford Girls' High School - where her literary talent was encouraged by English master J.A. Walker. She was a passionate reader from an early age, and she always wanted to be a writer. Duffy dispensed with religion aged fifteen, while at a convent school in 1985.

Duffy's poems provide voices for an extraordinary number of contemporary characters, including a fairground psychopath, a literary biographer, a newborn baby, disinherited American Indians, and even a ventriloquist's dummy. Many of the poems reflect on time, change, and loss. In dramatizing scenes of childhood, adolescence, and adult life, whether personal or public, contemporary or historical, she discovers moments of consolation through love, memory, and language. She explores not only everyday experience, but also the rich fantasy life of herself and others.

Of her own writing, Duffy has said,"I'm not interested, as a poet, in words like 'plash' - Seamus Heaney words, interesting words. I like to use simple words but in a complicated way." Singer-composer Eliana Tomkins, whom Duffy collaborated with on a series of live jazz recitals, says "With a lot of artists, the mystique is to baffle their readership. She never does that. Her aim is to communicate."

In her first collection Standing Female Nude (1985) she often uses the voices of outsiders.

Her next collection Feminine Gospels (2002) continues this vein, showing an increased interest in long narrative poems, accessible in style and often surreal in their imagery. Her 2005 publication, Rapture (2005), is a series of intimate poems charting the course of a love affair, for which she won the £10,000 T.S Eliot poetry prize. In 2007 she published a poetry collection for children entitled The Hat.

Many British students read her work while studying for English Literature at GCSE and A-level, as she became part of the syllabus in England and Wales in 1994.

John Mullan wrote of her in the Guardian that

"Over the past decade, Carol Ann Duffy has been the most popular living poet in Britain, her sales greatly helped by the fact that she has succeeded Hughes and Larkin as the most common representative of contemporary poetry in schools (and, it seems, the most commonly read writer of verse, but there are also aspects of her poetry that appeal to English teachers for good practical reasons. Her poems are frequently humorous; they use clear schemes of rhyme and metre; they can be satisfactorily decoded by the diligent close reader."

According to the journalist Katharine Viner,

"Her poems are accessible and entertaining, yet her form is classical, her technique razor-sharp. She is read by people who don't really read poetry, yet she maintains the respect of her peers. Reviewers praise her touching, sensitive, witty evocations of love, loss, dislocation, nostalgia; fans talk of greeting her at readings 'with claps and cheers that would not sound out of place at a pop concert'".

Duffy was almost appointed the British Poet Laureate in 1999 (after the death of previous Laureate Ted Hughes), but lost out on the position to Andrew Motion. According to the Sunday Times Downing Street sources stated unofficially that Prime Minister Tony Blair was 'worried about having a homosexual poet laureate because of how it might play in middle England'. Duffy later claimed that she would not have accepted the laureateship anyway, saying in an interview with the Guardian newspaper that 'I will not write a poem for Edward and Sophie. No self-respecting poet should have to.' She says she regards Andrew Motion as a friend and that the idea of a contest between her and him for the post was entirely invented by the newspapers. "I genuinely don't think she even wanted to be poet laureate," said Peter Jay, Duffy's former publisher. "The post can be a poisoned chalice. It is not a role I would wish on anyone - particularly not someone as forthright and uncompromising as Carol Ann." The Guardian has also stated that Duffy was reluctant to take up the role in 1999 as she was in a lesbian relationship at the time, and had a young daughter, so was reluctant to take up a position which would have put her so prominently in the public eye.

However, in 2009 she was tipped by major newspapers to be appointed as Andrew Motion's successor as poet laureate. On 29 April 2009, the Guardian reported that bookmakers Ladbrookes and William Hill had stopped taking bets on Duffy to become the next poet laureate as a result of media reports that she was to be appointed. William Hill had Duffy as 5/4 joint favourite with Simon Armitage.

In August 2008, Duffy's poem 'Education for Leisure' was removed from the AQA examination board's GCSE poetry anthology. This followed a complaint from an external examiner relating to references to knife crime in the poem. According to news reports, schools were urged to destroy copies of the unedited anthology, although a statement from AQA denied this. Duffy countered the removal with a poem highlighting violence in other fiction such as Shakespeare's plays, called 'Mrs Schofield's GCSE'.

Other works

Duffy is also an acclaimed playwright, and has had plays performed at the Liverpool Playhouse and the Almeida Theatre in London. Her plays include Take My Husband (1982), Cavern of Dreams (1984), Little Women, Big Boys (1986) Loss (1986), Casanova (2007). Her radio credits include an adaptation of Rapture. Her children's collections include Meeting Midnight (1999) and The Oldest Girl in the World (2000).

She also collaborated with Manchester composer, Sasha Johnson Manning on The Manchester Carols - a series of Christmas songs that premiered in Manchester Cathedral in 2007.

Her most recent appearance was at Manchester University (Fallowfield) for an event called Poetry Live.

Controversies

Duffy was almost appointed the British Poet Laureate in 1999 (after the death of previous Laureate Ted Hughes), but lost out on the position to Andrew Motion. According to the Sunday Times Downing Street sources stated unofficially that Prime Minister Tony Blair was 'worried about having a homosexual poet laureate because of how it might play in middle England'. Duffy later claimed that she would not have accepted the laureateship anyway, saying in an interview with the Guardian newspaper that 'I will not write a poem for Edward and Sophie. No self-respecting poet should have to.' She says she regards Andrew Motion as a friend and that the idea of a contest between her and him for the post was entirely invented by the newspapers. "I genuinely don't think she even wanted to be poet laureate," said Peter Jay, Duffy's former publisher. "The post can be a poisoned chalice. It is not a role I would wish on anyone - particularly not someone as forthright and uncompromising as Carol Ann." The Guardian has also stated that Duffy was reluctant to take up the role in 1999 as she was in a lesbian relationship at the time, and had a young daughter, so was reluctant to take up a position which would have put her so prominently in the public eye.

However, in 2009 she was tipped by major newspapers to be appointed as Andrew Motion's successor as poet laureate. On 29 April 2009, the Guardian reported that bookmakers Ladbrookes and William Hill had stopped taking bets on Duffy to become the next poet laureate as a result of media reports that she was to be appointed. William Hill had Duffy as 5/4 joint favourite with Simon Armitage.

In August 2008, Duffy's poem 'Education for Leisure' was removed from the AQA examination board's GCSE poetry anthology. This followed a complaint from an external examiner relating to references to knife crime in the poem. According to news reports, schools were urged to destroy copies of the unedited anthology, although a statement from AQA denied this. Duffy countered the removal with a poem highlighting violence in other fiction such as Shakespeare's plays, called 'Mrs Schofield's GCSE'.

Bibliography

• Fleshweathercock and Other Poems Outposts, 1974
• Beauty and the Beast Carol Ann Duffy & Adrian Henri, 1977
• Fifth Last Song Headland, 1982
• Standing Female Nude Anvil Press Poetry, 1985
• Thrown Voices Turret Books, 1986
• Selling Manhattan Anvil Press Poetry, 1987
• The Other Country Anvil Press Poetry, 1990
• I Wouldn't Thank You for a Valentine (editor) Viking, 1992
• William and the Ex-Prime Minister Anvil Press Poetry, 1992
• Mean Time Anvil Press Poetry, 1993
• Anvil New Poets Volume 2 Penguin, 1994
• Selected Poems Penguin, 1994
• Penguin Modern Poets 2 Penguin, 1995
• Grimm Tales Faber and Faber, 1996
• Salmon - Carol Ann Duffy: Selected Poems Salmon Poetry, 1996
• Stopping for Death (editor) Viking, 1996
• More Grimm Tales Faber and Faber, 1997
• The Pamphlet Anvil Press Poetry, 1998

• Meeting Midnight Faber and Faber, 1999
• The World's Wife Anvil Press Poetry, 1999
• Time's Tidings: Greeting the 21st Century (editor) Anvil Press Poetry, 1999
• The Oldest Girl in the World Faber and Faber, 2000
• Hand in Hand (editor) Picador, 2001
• Feminine Gospels Picador, 2002
• Queen Munch and Queen Nibble (illustrated by Lydia Monks) Macmillan Children's Books, 2002
• Underwater Farmyard (illustrated by Joel Stewart)Macmillan Children's Books, 2002
• The Good Child's Guide to Rock N Roll Faber and Faber, 2003
• Collected Grimm Tales Faber and Faber, 2003
• New Selected Poems Picador, 2004
• Out of Fashion: An Anthology of Poems (editor) Faber and Faber, 2004
• Overheard on a Saltmarsh: Poets' Favourite Poems (editor) Macmillan, 2004
• Another Night Before Christmas John Murray, 2005
• Moon Zoo Macmillan, 2005
• Rapture Picador, 2005
• The Lost Happy Endings (with Jane Ray) Penguin, 2006

Awards

• Eric Gregory Award 1984
• Scottish Arts Council Book Award (for Standing Female Nude and The Other Country, and again for Mean Time)
• Somerset Maugham Award 1988 (for Selling Manhattan)
• Dylan Thomas Award 1989
• Cholmondeley Award 1992
• Whitbread Awards 1993 (for Mean Time)
• Forward Prize (for Mean Time)
• T S Eliot Prize 2005 (for Rapture)
• Forward Prize (for Rapture)
• Greenwich Poetry Competition (for Words of Absolution)
• Nesta Award 2001
• Lannan Award 1995
• National Poetry Competition 1st prize, 1983 (for Whoever She Was)
• Signal Children's Poetry Prize 1999
• Poet Laureate 2009

Quotations

• "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."
• "My prose is turgid, it just hasn't got any energy."
• "In the 1970s, when I started on the circuit, I was called a poetess. Older male poets, the Larkin generation, were both incredibly patronising and incredibly randy. If they weren’t patting you on the head, they were patting you on the bum."
• "I’m not a lesbian poet, whatever that is. If I am a lesbian icon and a role model, that’s great, but if it is a word that is used to reduce me, then you have to ask why someone would want to reduce me? I never think about it. I don’t care about it. I define myself as a poet and as a mother – that’s all."
• "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."
• "Childhood for children yet to be born will be darkened in ways we can't imagine."

External links

• http://www.knittingcircle.org.uk/carolannduffy.html
• Template:Contemporary writers
• http://books.guardian.co.uk/poetry/features/0,12887,1657055,00.html
• http://books.guardian.co.uk/poetry/features/0,,902897,00.html
• http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20050813/ai_n14885362
• http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=350
• http://web.channel4.com/learning/main/netnotes//programid1436.htm
• “Warming Her Pearls”

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