Literary Birthday – 23 December – Carol Ann Duffy

Happy Birthday, Carol Ann Duffy, born 23 December 1955.

Carol Ann Duffy Quotes

1. I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way.
2. I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it.
3. I see the shape of the poem before I start writing, and the writing is just the process of arriving at the shape.
4. Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.
5. Poetry and prayer are very similar.

Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright. She was appointed Britain’s poet laureate from 2009 – 2019. She is the first woman, and the first Scot to hold the position. Her collections include Standing Female Nude, winner of a Scottish Arts Council Award; Selling Manhattan, which won a Somerset Maugham Award; The Bees, which won the Costa Poetry Award; Mean Time, which won the Whitbread Poetry Award; and Rapture, winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize. In 2024, she released Christmas Eve at The Moon Under Water. She was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1995, advanced to Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 2002, and was named a Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) in 2015.

Source for Image: walnut whippet from Hull, UK, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Carol_Ann_Duffy_(cropped).jpg

by Amanda Patterson

Are you interested in more authors’ birthdays? Please click here: Literary Birthday Calendar