"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.
"Of the individual poems, some are more lyric and some are more descriptive or narrative. Each poem is fixed in a moment. All those moments written or read together take on the movement and architecture of a narrative"
"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"
"The point of an experiment is not to arrive at a predetermined end point, to prove or disprove anything, but to deliver a poem that reveals much about the process taken"
"Our moments of inspiration are not lost though we have no particular poem to show for them; for those experiences have left an indelible impression, and we are ever and anon reminded of them"
"The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom... in a clarification of life - not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion"