Born OTD in 1955, the Scottish poet and playwright, Carol Ann Duffy. Carol was appointed Britain’s Poet Laureate in May 2009 and she is the first woman, the first Scot, and the first openly gay or bisexual poet to hold the position.

As Duffy dramatizes scenes from childhood, adolescence and adulthood, she finds moments of grace or consolation in memory, love and language amid the complexities of life. This collection finds a poet at the height of her powers using her full poetic range, casting her eye both inwards, in poems of a deeply personal nature, and yet also outwards, taking stock of a world in turmoil. In some of her most radical work yet, we see Duffy satirise and unpick the deception and dishonesty at the heart of our current political situation.

A rallying cry builds steadily through the book culminating in a moving closing ode to the virtue of sincerity. A fitting culmination to her time as a Poet Laureate, this collection, at once intimate and public, is a work of great power from one of our most cherished and humane poets.

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