Foreign thinker
Carol Ann Duffy
Carol Ann DuffyContemporary PoetryScottish
Poetry can be found in everyday life, in memory, in what people say on the bus, in the news, or just in your own heart.
Life and Thought
Carol Ann Duffy (born 1955) is a Scottish poet and playwright. She was the first woman to serve as Britain's Poet Laureate, from 2009 to 2019, and addresses themes of gender, identity, violence, and love in a simple yet powerful language.
Carol Ann Duffy was born on 23 December 1955 in Glasgow, Scotland. Her family, of Irish descent, moved to Stafford, England, when she was six years old. Duffy studied philosophy at the University of Liverpool, graduating in 1977. She began writing poetry as a teenager, and her first collection, Standing Female Nude, was published in 1985.
Her works, written in an accessible language close to everyday speech, explore issues of gender, oppression, violence, and identity. Collections such as Mean Time (1993), The World's Wife (1999), and Rapture (2005) are among her most important books. In The World's Wife, she reimagines the voices of the wives of historical and mythological figures. Duffy has received numerous awards, including the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Whitbread Award.
In 2009, she was appointed Britain's Poet Laureate, becoming the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly gay poet to hold the position, which she occupied until 2019. She is also Professor of Contemporary Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and her works hold a special place in British school curricula.
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