"Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning"
- Carol Ann Duffy
About this Quote
In this quote, poet Carol Ann Duffy compares her writing procedure to the relationship in between sand and an oyster. Simply as the sand irritates the oyster and triggers it to produce a pearl, Duffy sees the act of writing as a creative irritant that leads to the development of something gorgeous and important. She discusses that in each of her poems, she strives to discover a reality and therefore can not start with a fictional premise. This suggests that Duffy's poetry is rooted in truth and looks for to reveal deeper realities about the world and human experience.
"With the question of the effect of a poem, the topic of investigation shifts from that of textual autonomy to textual reception - to the issue of what we actually look for or find in reading a poem"
"The heart of the matter seems to me to be the direct interaction between one's making a poem in English and a poem in the language that one understands and values. I don't see how you can do it otherwise"
"A revolutionary poem will not tell you who or when to kill, what and when to burn, or even how to theorize. It reminds you... where and when and how you are living and might live, it is a wick of desire"
