`One of the freshest and bravest talents to emerge in British poetry – any poetry – for years. Her project is both subtle and experimental’ Independent `Duffy is magnificent, grounded, heartfelt, dedicated to the notion that poetry can give us the music of life itself’ Scotsman In her highly praised fourth collection, for which she won the Forward Poetry Prize for best collection and the Whitbread Poetry Award, Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy dramatizes scenes from childhood, adolescence and adulthood, finding moments of grace or consolation in memory, love and language amid the complexities of life. Containing more personal poems than in her earlier collections, here Duffy explores the nuances and sometimes painful nature of love and its relationship with time and memory over the course in which it is felt and fades. The poignant, authentic, striking poems of Mean Time have been loved by readers and critics alike since publication in 1993.