Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate

Last Friday, Carol Ann Duffy was appointed Poet Laureate, the first woman to hold the title in the post's 341-year history. She succeeds Andrew Motion as Laureate and is appointed for a fixed-term of ten years. Duffy, 53, was born in Glasgow and spent her school years in Stafford. She studied philosophy at the University of Liverpool. Best known for her collection The World's Wife, she won the T.S. Eliot prize for Rapture. Duffy said that she will give the £5,750 annual payment away but has clearly stated that she will personally enjoy the 600 bottles of sherry traditionally given to the Laureate.

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"Poetry can't be documentary. I'm not sure that any of the arts should be — but poetry, above all, is a series of intense moments — its power is not in narrative. I'm not dealing with facts, I'm dealing with emotion."

Carol Ann Duffy (Glasgow, 1955), as quoted by jeanette winterson in The Times, September 3, 2005


Further reading:

Carol Ann Duffy appointed new Poet Laureate (NDS)

First female Poet Laureate named (BBC News)

Profile: Carol Ann Duffy (BBC News)

Carol Ann Duffy becomes first woman poet laureate (The Guardian)

Profile: Carol Ann Duffy (The Guardian)

Carol Ann Duffy: The original good line girl (The Sunday Times)

Carol Ann Duffy: A poet laureate with a twist (The Independent)

carolannduffy.co.uk

Poetry by Carol Ann Duffy at The Guardian, Times Online and The Poetry Archive

the ear is the best reader

"When Frost said 'the ear is the best reader' he didn't mean to say that he preferred the fleeting voice to the substantial page, but to give them both equal value, and to remind us how they depended on one another. The point can be proved very easily. A poem creates its effects not simply by sharing an explicable meaning with its reader, but by dramatising that meaning and making it intimate - by the musicality (or not) of the words, by rhythm, by rhyme, by recurring patterns of sound, by disruptions, and by the movement and evolution of tone through a whole piece of work. It is a demonstration of harmonies, in all sorts of ways. More than that, even, the sound of a poem can actually become its meaning"


Andrew Motion (London, 1952), an excerpt from the article Listening to Poetry, published at The Poetry Archive, a comprehensive and expanding archive of recordings of poets reading their own work, available online for free


Further reading:

Classic poets' voices go online (BBC)

Motion cheers online poem archive (BBC)

Andrew Motion celebrates the rise and rise of the Poetry Archive (The Times)

Poetry Archive unveils lost voices (The Guardian)