This outstanding first collection introduced Carol Ann Duffy's impressive gifts and the broad range of her interests and style. The poems are fresh, skilful, passionate.

Carol Ann Duffy was born in Glasgow in 1955. Her awards include first prize in the 1983 National Poetry Competition; three Scottish Arts Council Book Awards; Eric Gregory, Somerset Maugham and Dylan Thomas Awards in Britain and a 1995 Lannan Literary Award in the USA. In 1993 she received the Forward Poetry Prize and the Whitbread Poetry Award for her acclaimed fourth collection `Mean Time'. On May 1, 2009 she was named the Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom.