Research questions:
1. who is Carol Ann Duffy? Where is she from? What contributions has she made to Modern Literature?
Carol Ann Duffy, (born 23 December 1955) is a Scottish poet and playwright. She is Professor of Contemporary Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University, and was appointed Britain's poet laureate in May 2009. She is the first woman, the first Scot, to hold the position.
Her collections include Standing Female Nude (1985), winner of a Scottish Arts Council Award; Selling Manhattan (1987), which won a Somerset Maugham Award; Mean Time (1993), which won the Whitbread Poetry Award; and Rapture (2005), winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize. Her poems address issues such as oppression, gender, and violence, in an accessible language that has made them popular in schools

2. What is the significance of being Poet Laureate in the UK?
The Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom is an honorary position appointed by the monarch of the United Kingdom on the advice of the Prime Minister. The role does not entail any specific duties, but there is an expectation that the holder will write verse for significant national occasions. The role has been held by Carol Ann Duffy since May 2009.

3. What was the supposed reason Duffy did not get that title in 1999? How did she react to that?
Duffy was almost appointed Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom in 1999 after the death of Ted Hughes, but lost out on the position to Andrew Motion. Duffy said she would not have accepted the position at that time anyway, because she was in a relationship with Scottish poet Jackie Kay, had a young daughter, and would not have welcomed the public attention. However, in the same year, she was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

4. What main themes does she address in her writing?
The main themes/ ideas in Duffy's poems are: * relationships * the past * school * growing up * love

5. What is her religious background and how has it influenced her writing?
Carol Ann Duffy was born to a Roman Catholic family in the Gorals, a very poor part of Glasgow. She was the first child of Frank Duffy, an electrical fitter, and Mary Black. Raised Catholic, Duffy dispensed with religion aged 15, when her convent school became an old people's home. She's escaped the guilt of the lapsed, but remains gripped by a heightened sense of the ritual of language.
6. What typical features of language can be easily identified in her writing? What did she say about words in her poetry?
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. “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."

7. What was life in the UK like in the 80s during Thatcherism (this is very useful for Economics students!)? What were Thatcher's policies and how did they affect ordinary people?
8. Repeated Features: * Caesura * Enjambment * Real life experiences * Imagery * Free Verse * Ironic metaphors * Dramatic Monologues