Empty Nest

‘Carol Ann Duffy is the most humane and accessible poet of our time’
- Guardian

In this stunning anthology of ninety nine modern and classic poems, Carol Ann Duffy delves into the powerful and unique bond between parent and child. Empty Nest contemplates growing old, the love of a parent, the everyday of family life, as well as poems that explore darker terrains – grief, loss and estrangement. Some of our favourite poets are collected here, such as Elizabeth Bishop, Jackie Kay, Simon Armitage, Shakespeare, Imtiaz Dharker, Seamus Heaney and Don Paterson.

These poems are by turns wry, moving, profound, funny, melancholic and wise; they will console and comfort those suddenly facing a house that may be much cleaner, but is also much quieter, than it once was. There is something here for every reader to treasure.

‘Wonderful . . . a poet alert to every sound and shape of language’
- Telegraph

About the Author

Carol Ann Duffy lives in Manchester, where she is Professor and Creative Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has written for both children and adults, and her poetry has received many awards, including the Signal Prize for Children’s Verse, the Whitbread, Forward and T. S. Eliot Prizes, and the Lannan and E. M. Forster Prize in America. She was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom 2009–2019. In 2011 The Bees won the Costa Poetry Award, and in 2012 she won the PEN Pinter Prize. She was made a DBE in the 2015 New Year’s Honours list.