Poems to be studied

Poets' background

• Carol Anne Duffy
• Simon Armitage

Sample Essay and Poem

Essay Questions

Useful Links

Poems to be studied back to top

Page No.

46

Poets' Background back

Carol Anne Duffyback

taken from: www.contemporarywriters.com

Poet, playwright and freelance writer Carol Ann Duffy was born on 23 December 1955 in Glasgow and read philosophy at Liverpool University . She is a former editor of the poetry magazine Ambit and is a regular reviewer and broadcaster. She moved from London to Manchester in 1996 and began to lecture in poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University . Her papers were acquired by the Robert W. Woodruff Library of Emory University in 1999, and in October 2000 she was awarded a grant of £75,000 over a five-year period by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.

Her poetry collections include Standing Female Nude (1985), winner of a Scottish Arts Council Award; Selling Manhattan (1987), which won a Somerset Maugham Award; The Other Country (1990); Mean Time (1993), which won the Whitbread Poetry Award and the Forward Poetry Prize (Best Poetry Collection of the Year); and The World's Wife (1999). Feminine Gospels (2002) is a celebration of the female condition. The Good Child's Guide to Rock N Roll (2003) is her latest collection for children. In Out of Fashion (2004) she creates a vital dialogue between classic and contemporary poets over the two arts of poetry and fashion. 

Carol Ann Duffy is also an acclaimed playwright, and has had plays performed at the Liverpool Playhouse and the Almeida Theatre in London . Her plays include Take My Husband (1982), Cavern of Dreams (1984), Little Women, Big Boys (1986) and Loss (1986), a radio play.

She received an Eric Gregory Award in 1984 and a Cholmondeley Award in 1992 from the Society of Authors, the Dylan Thomas Award from the Poetry Society in 1989 and a Lannan Literary Award from the Lannan Foundation (USA) in 1995. She was awarded an OBE in 1995, a CBE in 2001 and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999.

Carol Ann Duffy lives in Manchester . Her latest collection of poetry is Rapture (2005), winner of the 2006 T. S. Eliot Prize.

Simon Armitage back

taken from: www.contemporarywriters.com

Poet and novelist Simon Armitage was born in 1963 in Huddersfield , England . After studying Geography at Portsmouth Polytechnic, he worked with young offenders before gaining a postgraduate qualification in social work at Manchester University . He began working as a probation officer in Oldham in 1988.

His poetry books include Zoom! (1989), Kid (1992), and CloudCuckooLand (1997), which contains the poem 'The Tyre', adapted as a short film in 2000, and 'Eclipse', a short performance piece for young people commissioned by the National Theatre in London. He won an Eric Gregory Award in 1988, was named 'Most Promising Young Poet' at the inaugural Forward Poetry Prize in 1992, won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award in 1993, and was Poet in Residence for the New Millennium Experience Company in 1999. Mister Heracles (2000), an adaptation of Euripides' Heracles , was commissioned by the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Selected Poems was published in 2001.

Simon Armitage has worked extensively in film, radio and television. He wrote and presented Xanadu (1992), a 'poem film for television', broadcast by BBC television as part of the 'Words on Film' series, and his film about the American poet Weldon Kees was broadcast by the BBC in 1993. He also wrote and narrated Saturday Night , a documentary about Leeds , and Drinking for England , both broadcast by the BBC in 1996 as part of the 'Modern Times' series. Moon Country (1996), written with Glynn Maxwell, retraced a visit to Iceland in 1936 by the poets W. H. Auden and Louis MacNeice, and was adapted as a six-part series, Second Draft from Saga Land , broadcast by BBC Radio 3.

He is also the author of All Points North (1998), a collection of essays about the north of England . His first novel, Little Green Man (2001), the story of 30-something divorcee Barney and his attempt to relive childhood experiences, explores the darker side of male friendship. His second, The White Stuff (2004), by turns comic and moving, examines issues of childlessness and identity.

Essay Questions back

June 2005

(1) Compare the ways the relationships between the speaker of the poem and other people are shown in two poems from List A and two poems from List B

(2) Answer both parts (a) and (b)

(a) Compare the ways Duffy and Armitage present anti-social behaviour in Education for Leisure and Hitcher.

and then

(b) Compare the ways in which the attitudes of the speakers are presented in two poems from the Pre-1914 Poetry Bank.

 

(3) Answer both parts (a) and (b)

(a) Compare the endings of Havisham and The Laboratory.

and then

(b) Compare the endings of one poem by Simon Armitage and one other poem from the Pre-1914 Poetry Bank.

In both parts (a) and (b), remember to compare:

• how each ending fits in with the rest of the poem
• how the language reveals ideas
• what you think are the poets' reasons for ending the poems in these ways.

June 2006

(4) Compare how women are presented in four of the poems you have studied.

To do this, compare 'Mother any distance greater than a single span' by Simon Armitage and three other poems, one by Carol Anne Duffy and two from the Pre-1914 Poetry Bank.

Compare:

• the women in the poems
• how they are presented.

(5) Compare how death or the threat of death is presented in the poems you have studied.

Choose two poems from List A and two from List B.

(6) Answer both parts (a) and (b)

(a) Compare how memories are presented in Homecoming by Simon Armitage and Before You Were Mine by Carol Anne Duffy.

and then

Compare how attitudes to loved ones are presented in two poems from the Pre-1914 Poetry Bank.

Useful Links back

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carol_Ann_Duffy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon_Armitage

https://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetarmitage/index.shtml

https://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/english_literature/poetduffy/index.shtml

https://www.universalteacher.org.uk/poetry/duffy.htm

https://www.simonarmitage.co.uk/

https://www.universalteacher.org.uk/anthology/simonarmitage.htm

https://www.universalteacher.org.uk/anthology/pre1914poetry.htm