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About the poet
On May 1st 2009, Carol Ann Duffy became the UK's twentieth Poet Laureate. She is one of...
Name
Name
When did your name
change from a proper noun
to a charm?
Its three vowels
like jewels
on the thread of my breath.
Its consonants
brushing my mouth
like a kiss.
I love your name.
I say it again and again
in this summer rain.
I see it,
discreet in the alphabet,
like a wish.
I pray it
into the night
till its letters are light.
I hear your name
rhyming, rhyming,
rhyming with everything.
From Rapture (Picador, 2005), © Carol Ann Duffy 2005, used by permission of the author and the publisher.
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Over the years I’ve become increasingly interested in the lyrical nature of poetry. I find that the more I’ve taken in...
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