Editing Carol Ann Duffy (section)

===Style===
Duffy's work explores both everyday experience and the rich fantasy life of herself and others. In dramatizing scenes from childhood, adolescence, and adult life, she discovers moments of consolation through love, memory, and language. [[Charlotte Mendelson]] writes in ''The Observer'':

<blockquote>Part of Duffy's talent&nbsp;– besides her ear for ordinary eloquence, her gorgeous, powerful, throwaway lines, her subtlety&nbsp;– is her ventriloquism. Like the best of her novelist peers&nbsp;... she slides in and out of her characters' lives on a stream of possessions, aspirations, idioms and turns of phrase. However, she is also a time-traveller and a shape-shifter, gliding from [[Troy]] to Hollywood, galaxies to intestines, sloughed-off skin to department stores while other poets make heavy weather of one kiss, one kick, one letter&nbsp;... from verbal nuances to mind-expanding imaginative leaps, her words seem freshly plucked from the minds of non-poets&nbsp;– that is, she makes it look easy.<ref>Mendelson, Charlotte, [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/oct/13/poetry.features1 The gospel truth] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100130210416/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/oct/13/poetry.features1 |date=30 January 2010 }}, ''The Observer'', 13 October 2002.</ref></blockquote>

Of her own writing, Duffy has said: "I'm not interested, as a poet, in words like 'plash'—[[Seamus Heaney]] words, interesting words. I like to use simple words, but in a complicated way."<ref name=Forbes>{{Cite web|last=Forbes |first=Peter |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/aug/31/featuresreviews.guardianreview8 |title=Winning Lines |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130213202550/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2002/aug/31/featuresreviews.guardianreview8 |archive-date=13 February 2013 |url-status=live |work=The Guardian |date=31 August 2002}}</ref> She told ''The Observer'': "Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning."<ref>Anderson, Hephzibah. [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/dec/04/poetry.features Christmas Carol] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121103162815/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2005/dec/04/poetry.features |date=3 November 2012 }}, ''The Observer'', 4 December 2005.</ref>

Duffy rose to greater prominence in UK poetry circles after her poem "Whoever She Was" won the [[Poetry Society]] National Poetry Competition in 1983.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.poetrysociety.org.uk/content/duffy09/ |title=The Poetry Society |publisher=The Poetry Society |date=1 July 2016 |access-date=17 July 2016 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151222131724/http://poetrysociety.org.uk/content/duffy09/ |archive-date=22 December 2015 |df=dmy-all }}</ref>
In her first collection, ''Standing Female Nude'' (1985), she uses the voices of outsiders, for example in the poems "[[Education for Leisure]]" and "Dear Norman." Her next collection, ''Feminine Gospels'' (2002), continues this vein, showing an increased interest in long narrative poems, accessible in style and often surreal in their imagery. Her 2005 publication, ''[[Rapture (poetry collection)|Rapture]]'' (2005), is a series of intimate poems charting the course of a love affair, for which she won the £10,000 [[T. S. Eliot Prize]]. In 2007, she published ''The Hat'', a collection of poems for children. Online copies of her poems are rare, but her poem dedicated to [[U A Fanthorpe]], "Premonitions," is available through ''The Guardian'',<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/02/premonitions-carol-ann-duffy ''Premonitions''] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121107185757/http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/may/02/premonitions-carol-ann-duffy |date=7 November 2012 }} ''The Guardian'', 2 May 2009. Retrieved 16 March 2010.</ref> and several others via ''The Daily Mirror''.<ref>[https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/05/04/carol-ann-duffy-s-poems-for-children-115875-21330656/ ''Duffy's poems for children''] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111116214041/http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/05/04/carol-ann-duffy-s-poems-for-children-115875-21330656/ |date=16 November 2011 }}, ''Daily Mirror'', 4 May 2009. Retrieved 16 March 2010.</ref><ref>[https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/05/02/a-verse-first-carol-ann-s-previously-unpublished-poem-on-the-nature-of-her-work-115875-21325387/ ''A previously unpublished poem on the nature of her work''] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605222219/http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/top-stories/2009/05/02/a-verse-first-carol-ann-s-previously-unpublished-poem-on-the-nature-of-her-work-115875-21325387/ |date=5 June 2011 }}, ''Daily Mirror'', 2 May 2009. Retrieved 16 March 2010.</ref>