Context

Carol Ann Duffy was born in Glasgow in 1955. She moved to Staffordshire as a child with her family. After graduating in philosophy from Liverpool University, she became a full-time writer. Although her first works were published when she was 16, her first full poetry collection, Standing Female Nude, did not appear until 1985. She has since written five other collections that include poems about love, women, memory, desire and loss. She often writes dramatic monologues (poems from the point of view of a character) using the voice of an outsider or someone who is often ignored by others. She has been awarded both the OBE and the CBE.

She now lives in Manchester, where she teaches creative writing at the Metropolitan University and lives with her daughter, Ella (born in 1995).