De Britse dichteres en toneelschrijfster Carol Ann Duffy werd geboren in een rooms-katholiek gezin in de Gorbals, een arm deel van Glasgow, op 23 december 1955. Het gezin verhuisde naar Stafford, Engeland, toen Duffy zes jaar oud was. Haar vader werkte voor English Electric. Hij was een vakbondsman en was in 1983 zonder succes kandidaat voor de Labour Party. Daarnaast leidde hij de Stafford Rangers-voetbalclub. Duffy volgde een opleiding aan de Saint Austin’s RC Primary School in Stafford, de St. Joseph’s Convent School (1967-1970) en de Stafford Girls High School (1970-1974). Daarna studeerde zij filosofie aan de University of Liverpool en behaalde een graad in 1977. In 1983 won zij de Poetry Competition. Zij werkte als poëzierecensent voor The Guardian van 1988-1989 en was redacteur van het poëzietijdschrift Ambit. In 1996 werd zij benoemd tot docent in poëzie aan de Manchester Metropolitan University, en werd later creatief directeur van de daaraan verbonden Writing School. In 1988 ontving zij de Somerset Maugham Award, in 1993 de Whitbread Award en de Forward Poetry Prize en in 2005 de T. S. Eliot Prize. Ook won zij verschillende keren de Scottish Arts Council Book Award. In mei 2009 werd zij benoemd tot Poet Laureate als opvolger van de teruggetreden Andrew Motion. Duffy is de eerste vrouwelijke Poet Laureate, de eerste Schotse, en eveneens de eerste openlijk biseksuele vrouw in die functie. Als toneelschrijfster produceerde zij werk dat onder meer werd opgevoerd in het Liverpool Playhouse en het Londense Almeida Theatre, waaronder Take My Husband (1982), Cavern of Dreams (1984), Little Women, Big Boys (1986), Loss (1986) en Casanova (2007).
The Light Gatherer
When you were small, your cupped palms
each held a candleworth under the skin, enough light to begin,
and as you grew,
light gathered in you, two clear raindrops
in your eyes,
warm pearls, shy,
in the lobes of your ears, even always
the light of a smile after your tears.
Your kissed feet glowed in my one hand,
or I’d enter a room to see the corner you played in
lit like a stage set,
the crown of your bowed head spotlit.
When language came, it glittered like a river,
silver, clever with fish,
and you slept
with the whole moon held in your arms for a night light
where I knelt watching.
Light gatherer. You fell from a star
into my lap, the soft lamp at the bedside
mirrored in you,
and now you shine like a snowgirl,
a buttercup under a chin, the wide blue yonder
you squeal at and fly in,
like a jewelled cave,
turquoise and diamond and gold, opening out
at the end of a tunnnel of years.
We Remember Your Childhood Well
Nobody hurt you. Nobody turned off the light and argued
with somebody else all night. The bad man on the moors
was only a movie you saw. Nobody locked the door.
Your questions were answered fully. No. That didn’t occur.
You couldn’t sing anyway, cared less. The moment’s a blur, a Film Fun
laughing itself to death in the coal fire. Anyone’s guess.
Nobody forced you. You wanted to go that day. Begged. You chose
the dress. Here are the pictures, look at you. Look at us all,
smiling and waving, younger. The whole thing is inside your head.
What you recall are impressions; we have the facts. We called the tune.
The secret police of your childhood were older and wiser than you, bigger
than you. Call back the sound of their voices. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Nobody sent you away. That was an extra holiday, with people
you seemed to like. They were firm, there was nothing to fear.
There was none but yourself to blame if it ended in tears.
What does it matter now? No, no, nobody left the skidmarks of sin
on your soul and laid you wide open for Hell. You were loved.
Always. We did what was best. We remember your childhood well.
Carol Ann Duffy (Glasgow, 23 december 1955)