Birmingham Book Festival well versed with Carol Ann Duffy

May 28 2010 By Lorne Jackson

“We talk of them having a ‘fairy tale existence’, or call them ‘heroes’. So really they have replaced those old iconic characters from the past.

“I wrote the Beckham poem because I’ve got a lot of sympathy for what happened to him. I also wanted to draw a parallel with Achilles, who gave his name to Beckham’s injury.”

And has the heroic David of England fame seen the poem?

“Yes”, says Duffy. “And he likes it.”

Beckham is a fan of Duffy’s poetry and she is a supporter of English footy, with a strong allegiance to Liverpool.

“I don’t think I’ll be writing any poetry about the World Cup,” she admits. “I’ll be too engrossed watching it.”

Although she was born in Glasgow, Duffy moved to the north of England when she was six, and later went to Liverpool University, to be close to her boyfriend of the time, Merseyside poet, Adrian Henri. She is now Professor of Contemporary Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Although Duffy says she doesn’t have a radical agenda as laureate, I’m still curious to know if she views herself as an outsider in the world of poetry.

After all, she is only the second university educated poet to hold the position who didn’t study at Oxbridge. She is also the first Scot to fill the role (Sir Walter Scott refused the commission). Plus she is the first female laureate. The first openly bisexual one, too. And one of the few who have come from working class roots. Her earliest years were spent in the Glasgow Gorbals, once the biggest inner-city slum in Europe.

Her father, who worked for English Electric, was a trade unionist and later ran for Parliament under a Labour Party ticket.

But though Duffy can get angry at politicians, she refuses to be chippy about fellow poets.

She argues that she is no outsider.

“Snobbery isn’t present in the world of poetry at all,” she says. “Poetry is the language of being human, so there is no room for any artificial distinctions. We live in a country of such diverse cultures, and poetry is about all the variety of ways we think and live our lives. There can’t be room for limitations of those boundaries.”

Duffy may use words in an extraordinary and innovative fashion on the page. But she is conservative when it comes to new technology.

Many young poets are grasping the potential of the internet.

There are up-and-coming scribblers who use twitter to get point across, or join facebook poetry clubs.

But Duffy will stick with the old fashioned slivers of pulped wood, between stout covers, thank you very much.

“No, I never read poetry on the Internet,” she says. “I still like to buy a book then read it on the page, the old fashioned way. And even though text messages and Twitter keep messages short and sharp, I don’t think they really have the depth and resonance of good poetry. Fun and economical they may be. But I’d rather stick with my poetry books.”

* Birmingham Book Festival
* The Birmingham Books Festival’s Spring Thing – A Festival In A Day is at Birmingham Conservatoire, Paradise Place on Saturday, from 10.30am – 5.30pm.
* Other writers in attendance include Helen Dunmore, Stuart Maconie and Samantha Harvey.
* For more information tel: 0121 303 2323 or go to the website www.birminghambookfestival.org.