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.
Carol Ann DuffyI always say that I'll have a go and see whether the poem works and if it does, then fine.
Carol Ann DuffyI see the shape of the poem before I start writing, and the writing is just the process of arriving at the shape.
Carol Ann DuffyShe stood upon a continent of ice, which sparkled between sea and sky, endless and dazzling, as though the world kept all its treasure there; a scale which balanced poetry and prayer.
Carol Ann DuffyChristmas 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.
Carol Ann DuffyI think the dangers are different now. Our abuse of the planet and our resources is an anxiety.
Carol Ann DuffyFor me, poetry is the music of being human. And also a time machine by which we can travel to who we are and to who we will become.
Carol Ann DuffyLike the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning.
Carol Ann DuffyPoets deal in writing about feelings and trying to find the language and images for intense feelings.
Carol Ann DuffyAuden said poetry makes nothing happen. But I wonder if the opposite could be true. It could make something happen.
Carol Ann DuffyWhen you have a child, your previous life seems like someone else's. It's like living in a house and suddenly finding a room you didn't know was there, full of treasure and light.
Carol Ann DuffyI write quite a lot of sonnets, and I think of them almost as prayers: short and memorable, something you can recite.
Carol Ann DuffyWhere I lived - winter and hard earth.I sat in my cold stone roomchoosing tough words, granite, flint,to break the ice. My broken heart -I tried that, but it skimmed,flat, over the frozen lake.She came from a long, long way,but I saw her at last, walking,my daughter, my girl, across the fields,In bare feet, bringing all spring's flowersto her mother's house. I swearthe air softened and warmed as she moved,the blue sky smiling, none too soon,with the small shy mouth of a new moon.
Carol Ann DuffyIf I felt, in the event of a royal wedding, inspired to write about people coming together in marriage or civil partnership, I would just be grateful to have an idea for the poem. And if I didn't, I'd ignore it.
Carol Ann DuffyI 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.
Carol Ann DuffyHaving a child takes you back to all those parts of your own childhood that you had hidden away.
Carol Ann DuffyI have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it.
Carol Ann DuffyIt's always good when women win things in fiction because it tends to be more male-dominated, unlike poetry, which is more equal
Carol Ann DuffyIf we think of what's up ahead, with climate change and wars over water, it's very frightening.
Carol Ann Duffy