Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Carol Ann Duffy
Standard Name: Duffy, Carol Ann
Birth Name: Carol Ann Duffy
CAD
, Britain's first woman Poet Laureate, has published thirty books, which as well as poetry include plays, works for young people, and edited anthologies. Early in her career she began winning literary awards and has amassed an impressive number. She now lives by her pen. Her poems are witty, unexpected dramatisations of human situations, attentive to gender issues and to issues of power misused. She alternates personal, even autobiographical poetry with dramatic monologues which assume other voices. Among these voices are the disturbing ones of criminals or psychopaths.
The publishers of A Little Book of Meat quoted praise from Graham Swift
and Carol Ann Duffy
.
Textual Production
Selima Hill
In 1998 SH
's work appeared in volume two of Bloodaxe
's Poetry Quartets series of poetry readings on cassette tapes, along with Fleur Adcock
, Carol Ann Duffy
, and Carol Rumens
.
The selection of poets is highly informed. It reaches back in time before GG
's anthology Kissing the Rod, to Anne Askew
and Isabella Whitney
, and forward to Carol Ann Duffy
and Margaret Atwood
Textual Production
Antonia Fraser
Its revised edition, 2002, is strong in moderns like Kathleen Jamie
and Carol Ann Duffy
as well as in the fifteenth century onwards,
Textual Production
Elaine Feinstein
EF
followed her life of Pushkin
the following year with After Pushkin, an anthology of translations and imitations of his work, and responses to it, by contributors including Ted Hughes
, Seamus Heaney
,...
death
U. A. Fanthorpe
UAF
died in a hospice near Wotton-under-Edge the day before the announcement that Carol Ann Duffy
had been appointed first woman Poet Laureate, an honour that Duffy had wished Fanthorpe to have.
“British poet UA Fanthorpe dies”. BBC News.
Kennedy, Maev. “UA Fanthorpe, poet of the critics and public alike, dies aged 79”. The Guardian.
Flood, Alison. “Carol Ann Duffy becomes first female poet laureate”. The Guardian.
Reception
U. A. Fanthorpe
UAF
's poetry was broadcast on the BBC
's Woman's Hour and selected for Poems on the Underground. She was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
in 1987, a CBE in...
Intertextuality and Influence
Emily Dickinson
Because of the extent to which ED
's concentrated and elusive verse, as well as her dissent from religious and social orthodoxies, seem to presage modernism, she has been considered the sole serious writer among...
Textual Production
Sarah Daniels
When Sally Avens
conceived of a series of four radio plays, Women on Love, based on love-poems by women, SD
contributed a piece on Carol Ann Duffy
's Warming Her Pearls (in which a...
Anthologization
Gillian Clarke
In 2013 Candlestick Press
of Nottingham published as one of its poetry pamphlets CG's selected Ten Poems from Wales, range from the seventh to the twenty-first centuries and including a couple of unpublished pieces...
Material Conditions of Writing
Gillian Clarke
GC
was one of ten poets gathered by Carol Ann Duffy
in spring 2013 to spend two weeks, one in each of ten museums in Cambridge, and to craft a poem relating to the museum...
Intertextuality and Influence
Kate Clanchy
KC
never cherished any idea of being a writer. She says that it was not until much later in life that she began to think seriously about pursuing her own writing. A long-time poetry reader...
Literary responses
Kate Clanchy
The back cover quoted Carol Ann Duffy
saying: [KC
] has a distinct and, for me, completely fresh way of writing about the relations between men and women.
Clanchy, Kate. Slattern. Chatto & Windus.
back cover
Reception
Kate Clanchy
Some reviewers found the topic unsuitable: in KC
's words, too conservative, or too happy, or, mostly, because it involved me talking about myself. It still offends, it seems, for a mother to talk about...
Anthologization
Eavan Boland
EB
was published in Volume 2 of the Penguin Modern Poets series (the second series, which began this year and ran until 1997), together with Carol Ann Duffy
and Vicki Feaver
.
The first Penguin...
Timeline
No timeline events available.
Texts
Duffy, Carol Ann. Selling Manhattan. Anvil Press Poetry, 1987.
Duffy, Carol Ann. “September 2014”. theguardian.com.
Duffy, Carol Ann. Sincerity. Pan Macmillan, 2018.
Duffy, Carol Ann. Standing Female Nude. Anvil Press Poetry, 1985.
Rafferty, Trisha. Stopping for Death. Editor Duffy, Carol Ann, Viking, 1996.
Duffy, Carol Ann. The Bees. Picador, 2011.
Duffy, Carol Ann. “The Gambler”. Poetry Bookshop Online: Poems.
Duffy, Carol Ann. The Other Country. Anvil Press Poetry, 1990.
Duffy, Carol Ann. The Pamphlet. Anvil Press Poetry, 1998.
Duffy, Carol Ann. “The Week in Books”. The Guardian, p. Review 5.
Duffy, Carol Ann. The World’s Wife: Poems. Picador, 1999.
Duffy, Carol Ann. Thrown Voices. Turret Books, 1986.
Duffy, Carol Ann, editor. Time’s Tidings. Anvil Press Poetry, 1999.
Duffy, Carol Ann. William and the Ex-Prime Minister. Anvil Press Poetry, 1992.
Duffy, Carol Ann. “Winning Poets”. Mslexia, No. 38, pp. 31-3.
