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Carol Ann Duffy

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Carol Ann Duffy, whose poems now feature as part of the GCSE English literature syllabus, visited the College at the end of February to give two poetry readings, firstly to a Lower School audience in a packed Ellis Theatre, and then to a mainly Upper School audience in the more cosy surroundings of the Adderley. The latter is reviewed below.
 

 

Poetic Mischief

(Reviewed by Eugenie York)

 

The minute her car pulled up outside the Porters’ Lodge, I was terrified. Carol Ann Duffy had been such a big part of our two GCSE years and she was one of the few poets that I actually knew about before I met them.

My fears unfounded, I was confronted by a softly spoken and amiable, if mischievous, lady who made me feel immediately at ease by discussing my university options and telling me of her teenage affairs at school! 

Her fifty minute reading in the evening passed quickly, with amusing quips about teachers and recitations of poems from her collection, The World’s Wife, replete with fascinating, imaginative and amusing forays into the minds of the other halves of famous historical and mythological figures.