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Niamh

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a poem by duffyLittle Red Cap; is an interpretation of Duffy. The piece explains her first love, and venture into adulthood. The geography described in the first verse- playing fields, factory, railway line, woods is based on the landscape in her hometown. The relationship between Little Red Cap and the wolf represents Duffy's relationship with poet Adrian Henry. Little Red Cap falls in love with the Wolf at age 16 "i made quite sure he spotted me, sweet sixteen", the same age Duffy and Henri met at. The poem describes how their 10 year relationship helps Little Red Cap grow into adulthood "but then I was young - and it took ten years". Duffy and Henri lived together until 1982, for about 10 years. As pronounced in her poem, the two shared a sexual relationship, they were inspirations for their writings.

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Born in Glasgow and having been raised in Stafford since the age of 6, her relocation to Liverpool to study and eventually Manchester to teach, can be seen as an act of her leaving behind her strict Catholic background to embrace her love for literature without the influence of religion playing a part in her life.

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carol ann duffy is a scottish poet and a playwright. she is professor of contemporary poetry at manchester metropolitan university.

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Duffy is the bisexual daughter of a labour councillor. she is the older sister to four brothers and has 13 nieces and nephews. she also has her own daughter; Ella.

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carol ann duffy's favourite poems include

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arol ann duffy's favourite poets include John Keats, W.B. Yeats and Elizabeth Browning.

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carol ann duffy's favourite poems, according to

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carol

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carol

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carol

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Her place on the GCSE syllabus caused controversy in 2008, when a complaint was made about the poem Education for Leisure. This inspired her to retaliate with the poem Mrs Schofield's GCSE, in which she highlights that her poem, deemed as violent, was removed wrongly from the curriculum as Shakespeare's works have not been removed but are far more violent. She was outraged at the incident, but responded with a witty poem in her signature style.

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Carol Ann Duffy is an award-winning Scots poet who, according to Danette DiMarco in Mosaic, is the poet of "post-post war England: Thatcher's England." Duffy is best known for writing love poems that often take the form of monologues. Her verses, as an Economist reviewer described them, are typically "spoken in the voices of the urban disaffected, people on the margins of society who harbour resentments and grudges against the world." Although she knew she was a lesbian since her days at St. Joseph's convent school, her early love poems give no indication of her homosexuality; the object of love in her verses is someone whose gender is not specified. Not until her 1993 collection, Mean Time, and 1994's Selected Poems, does she begin to write about homosexual love.

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Two members of the Stafford Jazz Society of which Carol was a devoted member

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Two members of the Stafford Jazz Society of which Carol was a devoted member

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Duffy is well known for poems that give a voice to the dispossessed (people excluded from society); she encourages the reader to put themselves in the shoes of people they might normally dismiss.
Her poetry often engages with the grittier and more disturbing side of life, using black humour like a weapon to make social and political points.

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Carol ann duffy before appearing in Britains Got Talent

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According to Sean O'Brien, Duffy writes with a "combination of tenderness and toughness, humour and lyricism, unconventional attitudes and conventional forms" which makes her stand out from other poets.

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Mean Time Analysis FONTS Title Mean Time is the poem which gives that collection its complex title because it has three meanings, each of which has a bearing on Duffy's theme.

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Duffy’s themes include language and the representation of reality; the construction of the self; gender issues; contemporary culture; and many different forms of alienation, oppression and social inequality. She writes in everyday, conversational language, making her poems appear deceptively simple. With this demotic style she creates contemporary versions of traditional poetic forms - she makes frequent use of the dramatic monologue in her exploration of different voices and different identities, and she also uses the sonnet form.

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Duffy was born into a strictly Catholic family, with irish grandparents and four siblings. This meant her upbringing was very restricted

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Dame Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain's Poet Laureate in May 2009. She is the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly LGBT person to hold the position.

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Excellent work so far; keep the posts coming! If you can find quotes about Duffy's life from an author/source, don't forget to write that author's name in too!

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Carol Ann Duffy was born in the Gorbals (Glasgow) on 23 December 1955, the first child of May and Frank Duffy. May was Irish and Frank had Irish grandparents. They subsequently had four sons, and moved when Carol Ann was six to Stafford, where her father worked for English Electric and managed Stafford Rangers Football Club in his spare time. Duffy attended Roman Catholic primary and middle schools, and then Stafford Girls’ High.

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Niamh On 1 May 2009, Duffy was appointed the first Woman and openly LGBT poet laureate in the UK. For her first poem as poet laureate, she wrote about the MP expenses. She continues to write poems on prominent issues, on 30 August she wrote her poem 'Vigil' in memory of the LGBT people who have lost their lived to HIV/AIDS. 

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Niamh On 1 May 2009, Duffy was appointed the first Woman and openly LGBT poet laureate in the UK. For her first poem as poet laureate, she wrote about the MP expenses. She continues to write poems on prominent issues, on 30 August she wrote her poem 'Vigil' in memory of the LGBT people who have lost their lived to HIV/AIDS. 

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NiamhOn 1 May 2009, Duffy was appointed the first Woman and openly LGBT poet laureate in the UK. For her first poem as poet laureate, she wrote about the MP expenses. She continues to write poems on prominent issues, on 30 August she wrote her poem 'Vigil' in memory of the LGBT people who have lost their lived to HIV/AIDS. 

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NiamhOn 1 May 2009, Duffy was appointed the first Woman and openly LGBT poet laureate in the UK. For her first poem as poet laureate, she wrote about the MP expenses. She continues to write poems on prominent issues, on 30 August she wrote her poem 'Vigil' in memory of the LGBT people who have lost their lived to HIV/AIDS. 

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Carol Ann Duffy's literacy talents were spotted by two teachers June Scriven at St Joseph's, and Jim Walker at Stafford Girls' High. She wrote a poem in one of her teachers memory

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Born 23 December 1955 into a Catholic family living in Gorbals, a poor area of Glasgow, Scotland, with four brothers.
She was passionate about English and poems from a young age writing poems from the age of 11.
When she was 16, she met Adrian Henri and decided she wanted to be with him, and then lived with him until 1982. "He gave me confidence," she said, "he was great. It was all poetry, very heady, and he was never faithful."
She had two plays performed at the Liverpool Playhouse, wrote a pamphlet, Fifth Last Song, and received an honours degree in philosophy in 1977.
Duffy's work explores both everyday experience and the rich fantasy life of herself and others. In dramatising scenes from childhood, adolescence, and adult life.

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“ Poetry, above all, is a series of intense moments - its power is not in narrative. I'm not dealing with facts, I'm dealing with emotion."
- Carol Ann Duffy

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Hi Y12. I'd like you to do some research into Carol Ann Duffy's life as contextual information for AO3. Don't just use Wikipedia though!

Use a range of sources and find information about:
- her early life
- her Catholic upbringing
- her love of language
- places she has lived or places that have played an important part in her life
- any other relevant contextual information
- how this has impacted the poems in 'Mean Time'.

You can post videos, pictures and other content on this wall that will be shared with the class. Please put your name on anything you post so I know who to give credit to!

Enjoy!