Carol Ann Duffy

London based singer-songwriter Helene Greenwood has been around music from an early age. Born and raised in Dover, she grew up listening to her grandfather playing Scott Joplin & Bach, whilst her father played her the likes of Doris Day, Stranglers, Kate Bush & The Beatles. At the age of six, she was already playing the piano, with one of her earliest memories being sat playing along with thunderstorms. “My dad was a hovercraft captain, and I grew up on the south coast so I was always very aware of the weather and how dramatically it could change. I would often just sit at the piano and play along.”

This book provides an engaging, challenging and lively introduction to contemporary British and Irish poetry. It covers work by poets from a wide range of ethnic and regional backgrounds and covers a broad range of poetic styles, including mainstream names like Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy alongside more marginal and experimental poets like Tom Raworth and Geraldine Monk.