Tag: Carol Ann Duffy

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.

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.

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.

It’s always good when women win things in fiction because it tends to be more male-dominated, unlike poetry, which is more equal.

Poetry and prayer are very similar.

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

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

I still read Donne, particularly his love poems.