Carol Ann Duffy Wider Reading Quotes

'If I ever have a daughter, the first thing I will teach her to love is the word no'

The Chord / The Light Gatherer

'Words make me starve myself until you could see all of them'

The Diet

'Silence has always been my loudest scream'

Loud

'...collect words and polish them up until they shine like starlight in your palm'

A Dreaming Week / Gambler

Queen Herod: 'We do our best, we queens, we mothers, mothers of queens'

The Long Queen / The Chord

Mrs Darwin: 'I said to Him - something about that chimpanzee over there reminds me of you'

Sub / History

Mrs Beast: The lady says do this. Harder. The lady says do this. Faster.'

Beautiful

Penelope: '...kept my head down, did my work'

Work

Mrs Lazarus: 'I had wept for a night and day over my loss'

Death and the Moon

'Who taught you to write in blood on my back?'

The Map Woman

'You must be a photograph,not a poem.'

White Writing

'I have mapped you with my naked eye'

The Map Woman

'Nobody can legislate love'

White Writing

'Its the sadness of the real world that gives her words weight'

'...gorgeous, powerful, throwaway lines'

'...the poems are rich with regret...'

'This is a dark book.'

'...making use of ebullient street talk, off-rhythm rhymes and internal echoes...'

'The readiness to move on is intoxciating'

'...knockout images...'

'...women defined by the ability to excite the desire of men'

Beautiful

'...the effect is sensuous, sophorific and somehow thrilling'

A Dreaming Week

'Lighter, whimsical tone'

The Light Gatherer

'Sometimes the gritty details make a familiar point surprising'

Work

'...closer to a prayer or a love poem...'

Death and the Moon