I Wouldn't Thank You for a Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

Her head from the sieve of her hands and stareĪt the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift. Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer When one of her English teachers died, she wrote: She was a passionate reader from an early age, and always wanted to be a writer, producing poems from the age of 11. Joseph's Convent School (1967–1970), and Stafford Girls' High School (1970–1974), her literary talent encouraged by two English teachers, June Scriven at St Joseph's, and Jim Walker at Stafford Girls' High. ĭuffy was educated in Stafford at Saint Austin's RC Primary School (1962–1967), St. A trade unionist, he stood unsuccessfully as a parliamentary candidate for the Labour Party in 1983 in addition to managing Stafford F.C. The family moved to Stafford, England, when Duffy was six years old. The eldest of five siblings, she has four brothers: Frank, Adrian, Eugene and Tim. Her mother's parents were Irish, and her father had Irish grandparents. She was the daughter of Mary (née Black) and Frank Duffy, an electrical fitter. Early life Ĭarol Ann Duffy was born to a Roman Catholic family in the Gorbals, considered a poor part of Glasgow. Her poems address issues such as oppression, gender, and violence in accessible language. Her collections include Standing Female Nude (1985), winner of a Scottish Arts Council Award Selling Manhattan (1987), which won a Somerset Maugham Award Mean Time (1993), which won the Whitbread Poetry Award and Rapture (2005), which won the T. She was the first female poet, the first Scottish-born poet and the first openly gay poet to hold the Poet Laureate position. She is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Poet Laureate in May 2009, resigning in 2019.

Dame Carol Ann Duffy (born 23 December 1955) is a Scottish poet and playwright.

I Wouldn't Thank You for a Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy