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Carol Ann Duffy

• • • • Carol Ann Duffy was born on 23 December 1955 in Glasgow. She moved from London to Manchester in 1996 and began to lecture in poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University.

She wrote poems such as Education for Leisure, stealing, Havisham, Salome etc. Mother lived in 1950/1960 very strict but she seemed to have a very glamorous time, Carol Ann Duffy isn't jealous but wishes she could be like her and what she did.

Information about the poem

• The poem is quite difficult to follow for two reasons. Firstly because it moves very freely between present and past. • Secondly because the titles suggest romantic love but it’s about mother and daughter relationships.

• The poem is written as it would have been spoken by Carol Ann Duffy to her mum. • Duffy contrasts the young woman’s romantic fantasies with the reality of motherhood which comes 10 years later.

• This is an unusual and very generous poem. Carol Ann Duffy recognizes the sacrifice her mother made in bringing her up, and celebrates her brief period of glamour and hope and possibility.

Before You Were Mine

I'm ten years away from the corner you laugh on with your pals, Maggie McGeeney and Jean Duff The three of you bend from the waist,

Before you were mine

Holding each other, or your knees, and shriek at the pavement.

Your polka-dot dress blows round your legs. Marilyn.

Before you were mine

I'm not here yet. The thought of me doesn't occur in the ballroom with the thousand eyes, the fizzy, movie tomorrows the right walk home could bring.

Before you were mine

I knew you would dance like that, Before you were mine, your Ma stands at the close with a hiding for the late one. You reckon it's worth it.

Before you were mine

• The decade ahead of my loud, possessive yell was the best one, eh?

I remember my hands in those high-heeled red shoes, relics

Before you were mine

• and now your ghost clatters toward me over George Square till I see you, clear as scent, under the tree, with its lights, and whose small bites on your neck, sweetheart?

Before you were mine

•

Cha cha cha!

You'd teach me the steps on the way home from Mass, stamping stars from the wrong pavement.

Before you were mine

Even then I wanted the bold girl winking in Portobello, Somewhere, in Scotland, before I was born. That glamorous love lasts where you sparkle and waltz and laugh before you were mine.