Carol Ann Duffy is a Scottish poet and playwright. Duffy began writing poetry from the age of 11 and was encouraged by two English teachers to develop her literary talent. At the age of 15, Duffy published some of his poems and went on to study at Liverpool University. In 1977 he graduated with honors in philosophy. During his time at university Duffy also performed two plays at the Liverpool Playhouse. Duffy was appointed Poet Laureate on 1 May 2009. Children studying for their GCSEs and A Levels have also studied her poems. Many older children and adults of this generation hold Duffy's poetry close to their hearts; perhaps it is Duffy's honest exploration of everyday experiences in scenes of adult life, childhood, perhaps because a person's youth can never be relived. Throughout the poem the reader is asked if you would or could change something if you had the opportunity. Duffy writes the poem in the form of narrative dialogue; this technique is used in a variety of Duffy's poems. In this particular poem the dialogue takes place between an elderly person and a narrator. While reading the poem, the old man never seems to respond, but seems to follow the narrator's instructions. This technique allows Duffy to speak directly to the reader, who is asked to take part in the interrogation of their childhood memories. The beginning of the poem takes a sarcastic almost ironic approach: “If you think until it hurts you can almost do it without getting up from that chair” this is aimed at the person who has aged mentally as well as physically. “One word suggestion” indicates the way in which a single word can trigger an abundance of words. are some disjointed phrases in the second verse, “fell in the desolate streets” followed in the next line by “where I felt my heart gnawing” ” ended with the phrase “to all. our mistakes.” In this way, Duffy gives the reader time to think and feel what the writer is going through. The point where I felt my heart gnawing refers to the anxiety and pain he/she feels for the mistakes made in the relationship. Duffy uses personification again in the first line of the third stanza "If the darkening sky could lift." Here lift refers to the writer's desire to have his own mistakes erased. “But we will be dead, we know it” shows that death is a certainty for everyone, and wasting time crying is perhaps useless. This is where readers can identify with Duffy, as these emotions could occur, these mistakes explored through the poem