The Christmas Truce

Product Information

Duffy’s recent collections include her Collected Poems (2015), The Bees (2011), winner of the Costa Poetry Award and shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize; and Rapture (2005) , winner of the T.S. Eliot Prize. Duffy has also written verses for children. Her several collections of children’s poetry include The Gift (2010), New and Collected Poems for Children (2009), and The Hat (2007). Independent (London, England) October 2, 1999, Christina Patterson, "Street-wise Heroines at Home," p. WR9. Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, February, 1994, Betsy Hearne, review of I Wouldn't Thank You for a Valentine: Poems for Young Feminists, pp. 184-185; September, 1996, Betsy Hearne, review of Stopping for Death: Poems of Death and Loss, pp. 9-10. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Duffy is also the United Kingdom’s poet laureate, the first woman to be appointed the position in 400 years. She was seriously considered for the position in 1999. Prime Minister Tony Blair’s administration had wanted a poet laureate who exemplified the new “Cool Britannia,” not an establishment figure, and Duffy was certainly anything but establishment. She is the Scottish-born lesbian daughter of two Glasgow working-class radicals. Her female partner is also a poet and the two of them are raising a child together. Duffy has a strong following among young Britons, partially because her poetry collection Mean Timewas included in Britain’s A-level curriculum, but Blair was worried about how “middle England” would react to a lesbian poet laureate. There were also concerns in the administration about what Britain’s notorious tabloids would write about her sexuality, and about comments that Duffy had made urging an updated role for the poet laureate. In the end, Blair opted for the safe choice and named Andrew Motion to the post. Carol Ann Duffy makes the use of German and English in her poem to show the likeness of coming together regardless of side. Not even language can distract us from the idea that we are essentially human. Even though both said poems are written much after the world war to the point where even the authors did not experience the war first hand, they keep this very eventful incident in memory. These incidents are never going to be forgotten that easily. They do not shy away from making a sincere attempt at trying to capture what the Christmas of 1914 felt like in some sort of post memory essence. Essentially these poems high light Christmas of 1914 as a reminder that we can always be better people.

Beasts and Beauties: Eight Tales from Europe, first produced in Bristol, England, at the Bristol Old Vic,April 2004. The Game: Christmas Day, 1914’. McMillan, Ian. http://poetrysociety.org.uk/poems/the-game-christmas-day-1914/Nonetheless, Feminine Gospels (2002), as the title suggests, is a concentration on the female point of view. It is a celebration of female experience, and it has a strong sense of magic and fairytale discourse. However, as in traditional fairytales, there is sometimes a sense of darkness as well as joy. Birth, death and the cycles and stages of life feature strongly, including menstruation, motherhood and aging. Duffy’s beloved daughter Ella was born in 1995, and her experience of motherhood has deeply influenced her poetry (as well as inspiring her to write other works for children). Poems such as 'The Cord' and 'The Light Gatherer' rejoice in new life, while ‘Death and the Moon’ mourns those who have passed on: ‘[…] I cannot say where you are. Unreachable / by prayer, even if poems are prayers. Unseeable / in the air, even if souls are stars […]’. I am Creative Director of the Manchester Children's Book Festival, which is hosted and run by the Manchester Writing School at Manchester Met anddelivered in partnership with many of the major cultural and educational organisations across Manchester. My ambition is that is should be afestival for everyone with year-round events and special projects designed to raise aspirations and confidence in young people, offer project-based placements and festival management experience to our students, and to encourage the broadest possible audience to engage with literature, the arts, and opportunities for creative expression. Day Seven - The Wren-Boys: about the Christmas season in a small town with the wren connecting the stories. I loved this! Felt like people watching.

During World War I, on and Around Christmas Day 1914, the Sounds of Rifles Firing and Shells Exploding Faded in a Number of Plac Carol Ann Duffy by walnut whippet from Hull, UK — Original text : Carol Ann Duffy at Humber Mouth 2009Uploaded by Magnus Manske), CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10712082 CA. Duffy, D. Aitkenhead, JK. Rowling, M. Engel, P. Toynbee, et al. C. Brooker, PM. Evans. (2013). The Bedside Guardian 2013. M. Wainwright. Guardian Books. Observer (London, England), August 15, 1999, review of The World's Wife (audio version), p. 14; October 24, 1999, Kate Kellaway, review of Meeting Midnight, p. 13.UK Poet Laureat Carol Ann Duffy wrote this poem in remembrance of the soldiers in the German and British trenches in World War 1, who declared a momentary unilateral truce in the slaughter at Christmas 1914, in recognition of what united them as human beings, rather than the war that divided them as killing machines. Poet, playwright and freelance writer Carol Ann Duffy was born on 23 December 1955 in Glasgow and read philosophy at Liverpool University. A beautiful collection of Carol Ann Duffy's Christmas poems from the 10 years she was Poet Laurette, exclusively for independent book stores. I read this like an advent calendar over the past 10 days, and here are my thoughts.

From beer to sausages to cigarettes and treats, Christmas would go on to be flavorful and yet bitterly missed. Friends from foes is as holy as any gospel might claim to be. These poems capture the essence of becoming friends, and the idea of having to fight them later on. During World War One, 97 years ago, on December 24 and 25, 1914, along the western front, an unofficial ceasefire involving some 100,000 British and German troops took place. Just four months after the conflict started, the German and Allied armies had reached a stalemate bogged down in a vast network of flooded, freezing trenches undermining the pre-war patriotic fervour and claims it would all be over in a year.Football Remembers. Christmas Truce 1914. By DeFacto — Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48650239 Duffy’s more disturbing poems also include those such as ‘Education for Leisure’ ( Standing Female Nude) and ‘Psychopath’ ( Selling Manhattan) which are written in the voices of society’s dropouts, outsiders and villains. She gives us insight into such disturbed minds, and into the society that has let them down, without in any way condoning their wrongdoings: ‘Today I am going to kill something. Anything. / I have had enough of being ignored […]’ (‘Education for Leisure’).