Poet and playwright Carol Ann Duffy was born in Glasgow and studied philosophy at Liverpool University. An acclaimed poet, playwright and anthologist, she has received many of the major prizes for UK poetry, was awarded the CBE in 2001, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Her poetry collections include Standing Female Nude (1985), Selling Manhattan (1987), The Other Country (1990), Mean Time (1993), The World's Wife (1999), Feminine Gospels (2002), Rapture (2005), as well as poetry for children including The Good Child's Guide to Rock N Roll (2003).

She is the editor of many poetry anthology for adults and children, including Out of Fashion (2004) and Answering Back (2007). She is the recipient of numerous poetry awards, most recently the T S Eliot Prize 2006 for Rapture (2005).

In 2009, she accepted the post of Poet Laureate, making her the first female, Scottish Poet Laureate in the role's 400 year history.

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Related links

› Carol Ann Duffy at contemporarywriters.com

› Carol Ann Duffy's page at Picador

› Carol Ann Duffy in the Poetry Archive

› Carol Ann Duffy in the Guardian, on being Poet Laureate

› Department for Culture, Media and Sport official press release on Laureateship

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Ship

In the end,
it was nothing more
than the toy boat of a boy
on the local park’s lake,
where I walked with you.

But I knelt down
to watch it arrive,
its white sail shy
with amber light,
the late sun
bronzing the wave
that lifted it up,

my ship coming in
with its cargo of joy.

Carol Ann Duffy © 2005
from Rapture (Picador, 2005), reproduced by permission of Pan Macmillan