1. Carol Ann Duffy Poet Laureate

2. Background Born in Glasgow Raised in England Poet Laureate (appointed 2009) Public poetry

3. Style Everyday language Appeals to students “Entry level?” “I'm not interested, as a poet, in words like 'plash' - Seamus Heaney words, interesting words. I like to use simple words but in a complicated way.”

4. Examples of her work See handout "You sat on your desk,/ swinging your legs, reading a poem by Yeats/ to the bored girls, except my heart stumbled and blushed/ as it fell in love with the words and I saw the tree/ in the scratched old desk under my hands, heard the bird in the oak outside scribble itself on the air."