Carol Ann Duffy Quotes

Carol Ann Duffy (32)

Birth:	23rd December, 1955
Nationality:	British
Profession:	Poet, Professor, Playwriter

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Today's Anniversary - 26th May

Births

• 1963 - Simon Armitage
• 1926 - Miles Davis
• 1895 - Dorothea Lange
• 1964 - Lenny Kravitz
• 1983 - Scott Disick

Deaths

• 1853 - James Chalmers
• 1974 - Stewart Alsop
• 2003 - Kathleen Winsor
• 2008 - Sydney Pollack
• 1951 - Lincoln Ellsworth

• I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Poetry

• Auden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true. It could make something happen.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Opposite, Happen

• Having a child takes you back to all those parts of your own childhood that you had hidden away.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Children

  Tags in Childhood, Away

• I always say that I’ll have a go and see whether the poem works and if it does, then fine.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Work

  Tags in Poem, Fine

• I always wanted a child. Being a mother is the central thing in my life.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Children, Life, Mother

  Tags in Central, Always

• 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.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Experience

  Tags in Teachers, Poems

• I am always pleased to be asked to write a poem.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Pleased

• I like to think that I’m a sort of poet for our times.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Poet

• I see the shape of the poem before I start writing, and the writing is just the process of arriving at the shape.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Writing, Arriving

• I still have a feeling that I haven’t written the best that I can write. I think all poets must feel this: that there is constantly something new to be discovered in the language. It’s like a thrilling encounter, and you can find things.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Discovered, Written

• 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.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Curriculum, Subject

• 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.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Wedding

  Tags in Grateful, Ignore

• If we think of what’s up ahead, with climate change and wars over water, it’s very frightening.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Frightening, War

• 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.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Experience

  Tags in Forcibly, Impression

• 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.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Poem, Text

• The poem is the literary form of the 21st century. It’s able to connect young people in a deep way to language… it’s language as play.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Century, Literary

• 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.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Heart, Poetry

• I think the dangers are different now. Our abuse of the planet and our resources is an anxiety.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Different, Anxiety

• 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.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Christmas, Father

  Tags in Believe

• Between 9am and 3pm is when I work most intensely.

  Carol Ann Duffy

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Between, Intensely