
Carol Ann Duffy celebrates her seventieth birthday on 23 December 2025, four decades after she burst onto the poetry scene with the publication of Standing Female Nude (1985). She has been a leading voice in British poetry for 40 years, regularly publishing new work, consistently attracting public attention, and winning prizes. In 2009 she was appointed Poet Laureate, the first woman to serve in the role during its 400-year history. In this role, Duffy established the Ted Hughes Prize for Innovation in Poetry and awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry every year during the ten years of her service. Duffy is a major force in British poetry, both because of the resonance of her own work and because of her generous encouragement of others.
Duffy is as compelling in her treatment of personal experience as she is in addressing matters of public concern. Rapture, for example, the 2005 sonnet collection for which she won the globally prestigious T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry, is the intimate exploration of a love affair from heart-beating beginning to broken-hearted ending. Ritual Lighting (2014), on the other hand, is orientated towards the public sphere, a collection of laureate poems that speak to the common good.
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