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.
Category Archive: Carol Ann Duffy
Poets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.
I write in that space between Ella’s childhood and mine. I know it all sounds a bit sinister.
If we think of what’s up ahead, with climate change and wars over water, it’s very frightening.
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.
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.
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.
Poetry and prayer are very similar.
My prose is turgid, it just hasn’t got any energy.