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The English Programme: Passwords
 
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Simon Armitage
Carol Ann Duffy
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Ted Hughes
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Carol Ann Duffy

Programme Outline

Carol Ann Duffy, accompanied by her mother and daughter, visits poet Liz Lochhead in Glasgow. Carol Ann Duffy reads her poems and discusses each with Liz Lochhead. ‘War Photographer’ is read from a Manchester cemetery.

Poem 1: 'Before You Were Mine'

Poem 2: 'Valentine'

Poem 3: 'War Photographer'

Poem 4: 'Stealing'

Carol Ann Duffy, accompanied by her mother and daughter, visits fellow poet Liz Lochhead in Glasgow, the city where Duffy was born, to discuss the poems chosen for the NEAB Anthology. The first poem, 'Before You Were Mine' - a poem to the poet's mother - is read, accompanied by images of a recreated 1950s Glasgow dance floor. Lochhead and Duffy talk about the poem in Liz's living room, and May Duffy adds her own comments. The second poem, 'Valentine', is read in a kitchen. Lochhead and Duffy discuss the origins of the poem and its language and imagery. 'War Photographer' is read by Duffy from a Manchester cemetery; we see Ken Guest, an actual war photographer, working in a photographic darkroom and visiting the Imperial War Museum. He talks about the poem and what it means to him. The final poem, 'Stealing' - a poem about the theft of a snowman - is dramatised in a Glasgow suburb. Lochhead asks Duffy about the circumstances of the poem. We see them walking together in Glasgow's Botanic Gardens.