Introduction to Carol Ann Duffy's First Collection

Carol Ann Duffy's outstanding first collection, Standing Female Nude, introduced readers to all they would come to love about her poetry. From lovers to wives to war photographers, the poems it contains range from the delicately poignant to the fiercely political, exploring memory, gender, childhood and place. Within it are also some of her best-known poems, including Education for Leisure, as well as, of course, the poem from which the collection takes its title.

First published in 1985 to widespread critical acclaim, Standing Female Nude is a work of startling originality and the starting point of the Poet Laureate's dazzling poetic career.