Carol Ann Duffy

But life, they said, means life. Dying inside.The Devil was evil, mad, but I was the Devil's wifewhich made me worse. I howled in my cell.If the Devil is gone then how could this be hell?

I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way.

Words, words were truly alive on the tongue, in the head, warm, beating, frantic, winged; music and blood.

I'm not the first or the lastto stand on a hillock,watching the man she marriedprove to the worldhe's a total, utter, absolute, Grade A pi

But behind each player sttod a line of ghosts unable to win. Eve. Ashputtel. Marilyn Monroe. Rapunzel slashing wildly at her hair. Bessie Smith unloved and down and out. Bluebeard's wives, Henry VIII's, Snow White cursing the day she left the seven dwarves, Diana, Princess of Wales. The Sheepish Beast came in with a tray of schnapps at the end of the game and we stood for the toast -"fay wray"- then tossed our fiery drinks to the back of our crimson throats. Bad girls. Serious ladies. Mourning our dead.

The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seaswhere we would dive for pearls. My lover__ wordswere shooting stars which fell to earth as kisseson these lips; my body now a softer rhymeto his, now echo, assonance; his toucha verb dancing in the centre of a noun.Some nights, I dreamed he__ written me, the beda page beneath his writer__ hands. Romanceand drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,dribbling their prose. My living laughing love -I hold him in the casket of my widow__ headas he held me upon that next bes

Poetry, above all, is a series of intense moments - its power is not in narrative. I'm not dealing with facts, I'm dealing with emotion.

Then he started his period.One week in bed.Two doctors in.Three painkillers four times a day.And later a letter to the powers-that-bedemanding full-paid menstrual leave twelve weeks per year.

If 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.

I still read Donne, particularly his love poems.

I have piles of poetry books in the bathroom, on the stairs, everywhere. The only way to write poetry is to read it.

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.

Christmas 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.

I 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.

Love__ language starts, stops, starts; the right words flowing or clotting in the heart.

Poets sing our human music for us.

The bed we loved in was a spinning world of forests, castles, torchlight, clifftops, seaswhere we would dive for pearls. My lover__ wordswere shooting stars which fell to earth as kisseson these lips; my body now a softer rhymeto his, now echo, assonance; his toucha verb dancing in the centre of a noun.Some nights, I dreamed he__ written me, the beda page beneath his writer__ hands. Romanceand drama played by touch, by scent, by taste.In the other bed, the best, our guests dozed on,dribbling their prose. My living laughing love -I hold him in the casket of my widow__ headas he held me upon that next best bed.

Love__ time__ beggar, but even a single hour,bright as a dropped coin, makes love rich.We find an hour together, spend it not on flowersor wine, but the whole of the summer sky and a grass ditch.For thousands of seconds we kiss; your hairlike treasure on the ground; the Midas lightturning your limbs to gold. Time slows, for herewe are millionaires, backhanding the nightso nothing dark will end our shining hour,no jewel hold a candle to the cuckoo spithung from the blade of grass at your ear,no chandelier or spotlight see you better litthan here. Now. Time hates love, wants love poor,but love spins gold, gold, gold from straw.