The Full Text of “Head of English”
The Full Text of “Head of English”
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“Head of English” Introduction
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Carol Ann Duffy's "Head of English" satirizes the dreary conventionality of a lot of poetry teaching (and poetry teachers). This dramatic monologue's speaker, the conservative old head of the English department at a British girls' school, condescendingly introduces a visiting poet to the class—and reveals a thoroughly unpoetic attitude in the process. Poetry, this poem implies, can be a source of power, joy, and change—but bad teaching can make it seem like a dull and virtuous chore. Duffy first published this poem in her 1985 collection Standing Female Nude.
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“Head of English” Summary
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The poem's speaker, the head of the English department at a British girls' school, addresses a class gathered for an assembly, telling the students that a published poet has come to speak to them today. Pointing out the appropriately poetic ink stains on the writer's fingers, the teacher tells the girls they might be about to hear some fresh new poems, before instructing them to clap—quietly—sit up straight, and listen respectfully.
The teacher reminds the students to remember what they've learned about free verse in past lessons: not every poem rhymes now, the teacher says, with obvious disappointment. Then, the teacher gets back to telling the students what to do, warning them to sit quietly—but to be sure to ask questions at the end, since the school is shelling out £40 for this visit.
The teacher veers into announcements for a minute, telling the ESL class to come to a meeting after lunch, then reiterates how lucky the students are to have a poet in class today, halfheartedly quotes Keats, and talks about their own poetry-writing and reading, noting that they're teaching Rudyard Kipling to the 9th graders at the moment.
The teacher starts to wind up this speech, encouraging the poetic "Muse" who inspires writers to take center stage instead. But first, a student needs to open a window, so the "winds of change" don't sweep around the room too much. The teacher also reminds the students to take notes so they can write an essay about the poet's ideas later. Then, at long last, the teacher gives the poet the floor, asking them to try to persuade everyone that there's something new to learn.
After the poet speaks, the teacher tells the students to go take their lunch break, noting (with subtle disapproval) that the poet has just given them a window into some unconventional views of the world, and then instructing the students to clap. Finally, the teacher thanks the poet for coming and invites them to stay for lunch—but rather rudely dashes off to (apparently) more important business. The school secretary, Tracey, will usher the poet out the door instead.
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“Head of English” Themes
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Poetry and Education
Carol Ann Duffy’s satirical “Head of English” suggests that a fusty old educational system can suck the joy and life right out of poetry. This dramatic monologue’s speaker, an English teacher at a British girls’ school, introduces a visiting poet to the students with a combination of boredom, distaste, and unease. To this teacher, contemporary free verse poetry is suspect, lacking the gravitas of 19th-century rhymed verse—but, as the poem makes clear, the teacher doesn’t really understand or appreciate the beauty of traditional poetry, either! A lot of poetry teaching, this poem suggests, completely misunderstands the subject it claims to venerate, treating poetry as a chore or a sign of stuffy “good taste” rather than a moving, evolving art form.
By characterizing the titular Head of English as an old-fashioned, strict, and humorless figure, the poem suggests that a lot of teaching makes poetry seem dull and dry. Not only does this teacher sternly tell the assembled students to “sit up straight,” stop “whispering,” and not clap “too loud,” they also make it clear that they see poetry not as a living art, but as a subject for technical “lesson[s]” on abstract poetic devices and “essay[s] on the poet’s themes.” Reading poetry, to this teacher, is something like doing your chores: it builds character, but it’s deeply unexciting.
What’s more, the poem argues, plenty of poetry teaching is stuck in the past. The head of English is skeptical about the visiting contemporary poet, observing that “not all poems, sadly, rhyme these days,” and that they prefer the old-fashioned (and often aggressively patriotic and racist) rhymed, metered poetry of Rudyard Kipling to newfangled free verse. In this poem’s opinion, many teachers see poetry as a way to cling to old values, rather than as a sometimes revolutionary art that’s still developing.
Worse, the poem goes on, a lot of old-fashioned poetry education doesn’t actually value the beauty and power even of the 19th-century poetry it praises, treating poems only as symbols of good taste and classiness. When the teacher approvingly quotes the first words of the Romantic poet John Keats’s great ode “To Autumn,” for example, they trail off vaguely, totally unmoved: “Season of mists and so on and so forth.” Even classic poetry, to this teacher, is just something that one is supposed to know about to show that one is educated; it’s more important to be able to quote Keats than to be touched by what he had to say (and how beautifully he said it).
All this shortsightedness, the poem hints, isn’t only to do with educational conventionality, but also with a fear of change. When the speaker asks a student to open a window before the visiting poet speaks so the “winds of change” don’t get trapped in the room, it sounds as if they suspect that the poet might have dangerous things to say—things that might inspire the students to rebel against the school’s strictures.
And after the poet speaks, the teacher becomes defensive, dismissively observing that the poet’s words “gave an insight to an outside view” (in other words, provided a glimpse of an outlandish and countercultural way of thinking) before sending the students to lunch. Poetry, the poem suggests, can be powerfully subversive, and dull conventional teaching might be meant to defang it by making it seem boring.
This poem’s satirical portrait of a stuffy old teacher thus argues that poetry teaching is often woefully conservative—and hints that good poetry teaching, teaching that respects poetry as a vital and beautiful art form, could be a force for genuine change.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-30
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Head of English”
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Lines 1-5
Today we have ...
... Who knows.The poem's first lines characterize this dramatic monologue's speaker: the stuffy old "Head of English" (that is, the head teacher of the English department) at a British girls' school. These lines also indirectly paint a picture of the environment in which such a Head is at home. Both the Head's pompous tone and the fact that this is a girls' school (and therefore, probably, an exclusive private school rather than a state school) invite readers to imagine the poem taking place in an old-fashioned wood-paneled assembly hall, where rows of girls in school uniforms sit in utter boredom, listening to the Head drone on.
Today, the Head begins, is a special occasion: "we have a poet in the class." Better still, this is a poet with "a published book"—an official poet, not just some hobbyist. The inkblots on the poet's fingers—stains which the Head points out as if they were markings on a songbird—are yet more evidence that this visitor is the real deal.
But all the Head's enthusiasm for this "real live poet" sounds distinctly condescending. Take a look at the repetition in the first two lines:
Today we have a poet in the class.
A real live poet with a published book.That diacope on "poet"—and the intensifying "real live"—makes it sound as if the Head is being patronizing to both the visiting poet and the students, introducing the poet as if the poet were the tooth fairy: look, the tooth fairy! Yes, the real live tooth fairy, with her wings and her wand! A "poet," to this Head, is clearly a kind of stock character, identified by "inkstained fingers" and legitimized (barely) by a "published book"—no one to be taken too seriously.
This forced and condescending cheer about this poetic visitor gets even more pronounced when the Head remarks that the girls might be about to "witness verse hot from the press," and follows up that jolly cliché with an utterly unenthusiastic "Who knows."
Everything in this first little speech, in other words, reveals that the Head of English is pompous, small-minded—and probably not what you'd call a poetry-lover. And this, the poem will suggest, is an all-too-common irony in the world of education: the very people responsible for teaching poetry often have no love or feeling for their subject.
Note, too, that the poem never gives readers a picture of the Head; this person might be male or female, old or young (though they certainly sound on the old side). The Head's attitude, this intentional omission suggests, turns up in all kinds of teachers; readers might even imagine their own most pompous teacher in the Head's place.
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Lines 5-9
Please show your ...
... Still. Never mind. -
Lines 10-12
Whispering's, as always, ...
... paying forty pounds. -
Lines 13-16
Those of you ...
... and so forth. -
Lines 17-18
I've written quite ...
... the Lower Fourth. -
Lines 19-21
Right. That's enough ...
... about the place. -
Lines 22-24
Take notes, but ...
... we don't know. -
Lines 25-27
Well. Really. Run ...
... Applause will do. -
Lines 27-30
Thank you ...
... show you out.
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“Head of English” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Irony
This poem uses irony in everything from its subject matter to its shape, poking satirical fun at a soulless educational system.
The central irony here, of course, is that the Head of English—a person who clearly hates and fears the poetry they claim to respect—speaks in the form of a poem, sometimes even dipping into iambic pentameter for a while (as in the first four lines—note the five da-DUMs in "Today | we have | a po- | et in | the class"). In spite of these moments of meter, of course, this dramatic monologue is written in free verse, delivering the droning speech of a deeply unpoetical person in the very form they most dislike.
That points to the second big irony here: the Head of English has no real love or feeling for, well, English. While the Head claims to have "written quite a bit of poetry myself," and to have a fondness for the rhymed poetry of Kipling and Keats, their halfhearted quotations ("Season of mists and so on and so forth") and their general attitude to the visiting poet suggest that they see poetry more as a merit badge than as a moving (and living) art form. This teacher clearly feels it's better to stick to the respectable classics (even if you don't understand them or feel much about them) than to let poetry really "change" the way you look at life.
Where irony appears in the poem:- Lines 1-30
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Allusion
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Metaphor
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Enjambment
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End-Stopped Line
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Alliteration
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Understatement
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Caesura
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"Head of English" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Assonance
- In our midst
- Season of mists
- The Lower Fourth
- Kipling
- The Muse
- Reams
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(Location in poem: Lines 7-8: “Remember / the lesson on assonance”)
A figure of speech in which the same vowel sound repeats all through a series of words. (More on that here!)
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Head of English”
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Form
This poem's form is all part of its tongue-in-cheek satire on English teaching. This free verse poem is divided into five neat stanzas of six lines apiece, giving ironic poetic shape to the Head of English's pointedly unpoetic speech.
The conservative Head of English would certainly not approve of this poem's form: while the lines sometimes dip into iambic pentameter (as in lines 1-4—see the Meter section for more on that) or internal rhyme (as in "reams"/"themes" in lines 22 and 23), they don't stick to any one meter or rhyme scheme.
But the poem does use one traditional form: it's a dramatic monologue, a poem written in the voice of a character addressing an audience. As in many dramatic monologues, the speaker here reveals more than they might have meant to about their own beliefs and personality, coming across not as a respected authority figure, but a pompous old tyrant.
In other words, the form here is itself satirical and makes it clear that the unconventional visiting poet, with their "outside view" of the world, might also be the very person writing this poem.
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Meter
This free verse poem doesn't use any regular meter throughout. But it does occasionally dip into meter for the sake of a joke.
The first four lines, for instance, are written in pretty steady iambic pentameter: in other words, lines of five iambs, metrical feet with a da-DUM rhythm. Here's how that sounds in line 1:
Today | we have | a po- | et in | the class.
By having the Head of English speak these words in one of poetry's most familiar and august meters—the same meter that Shakespeare wrote in—Duffy makes it clear that the Head has marinated in the poetry of the past without ever learning much about life from it. The Head's tidy little speech might sometimes fall into a heartbeat-like iambic pulse, but it's never pumping any red blood.
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Rhyme Scheme
Written in free verse, "Head of English" doesn't use any particular rhyme scheme. However, it does use flashes of rhyme, often to play up a joke.
For instance, listen to the internal rhyme in these lines:
Take notes, but don't write reams. Just an essay
on the poet's themes. Fine. Off we go.This witty rhyme draws special attention to the Head's dull-as-ditchwater assignment, underlining just how joyless the poetry teaching is at this school.
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“Head of English” Speaker
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The poem's speaker is a stuffy, staid, strict old teacher—one who might have a little more power than is good for them. As the "Head of English," they run the whole English department with an iron fist. Much of their speech in this poem, supposedly an introduction to a visiting poet, is actually just a list of orders to the students: "sit up straight and listen," don't clap "too loud," "take notes."
The Head isn't just tyrannical, but conservative and small-minded. Claiming a taste for old-fashioned rhymed poetry (unlike the new-fangled free verse that the visiting poet writes), they don't actually seem to like poetry much at all, halfheartedly quoting Keats ("Season of mists and so on and so forth") without seeming the least bit moved. What really attracts this teacher to older poets is those poems' conventional respectability—an ironic thought, considering that the "conventional" poets of today are yesterday's rebels!
This speaker is a caricature, a figure who represents any number of teachers in the world: people more interested in maintaining order than fully embracing the life and beauty of poetry.
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“Head of English” Setting
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The poem is set in a girls' school somewhere in the UK. The speaker never says much about their surroundings, but readers familiar with such schools might imagine this poem taking place in an assembly hall, where uniformed students sit "whispering" until their teacher scolds them.
This setting makes it clear that this poem is interested in the way bad poetry teaching can be classist and reactionary, as well as plain old dull. The students at a private British girls' school would likely be pretty well-off, members of a wealthy cultural elite in training. And their conservative old teacher seems more interested in maintaining the traditional values of a poet like Kipling (whose colonial-era poetry is often imperialist and racist) than in getting mixed up in new-fangled (and possibly subversive) contemporary poetry.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Head of English”
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Literary Context
The Scottish-born Carol Ann Duffy (1955-present) is the first (and so far, the only) woman to serve as Poet Laureate of the UK. She was a choice likely to shake up the world's stuffy "Heads of English": a working-class writer and an out lesbian, she brought fresh air and new perspectives to a laureateship historically dominated by (mostly) straight, white, middle-class men. This satirical poem, first published in Duffy's 1985 collection Standing Female Nude, clearly draws on Duffy's own experiences as a public poet making school visits and reflects her interest in British class politics as well as poetry education.
"Head of English" is one of Duffy's many dramatic monologues; her poetry often takes on different characters and perspectives. In one of her most famous collections, The World's Wife, she writes in the voices of mythological and historical women from Medusa to Frau Freud to Mrs. Midas, giving these silent figures their own say (and offering feminist critiques of myth, history, and literature along the way).
In her fondness for dramatic monologues, Duffy follows in the footsteps of writers like Robert Browning, but she also fits into the contemporary poetry scene around her. Margaret Atwood, for example, has used the form for similar feminist purposes. Duffy is also one of many 20th-century poets to embrace free verse. She sees herself as a descendent both of more recent free verse poets like Sylvia Plath and of Romantics like John Keats (whose "To Autumn" the Head halfheartedly quotes in this poem). In turn, she has influenced (and championed) writers like Alice Oswald, Kate Clanchy, and Jeanette Winterson.
Historical Context
When Duffy published this poem in 1985, British economic and social inequality were a hot topic in the UK. The Conservative Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who rose to power in 1979, was presiding over a time of ever-deepening class divisions and growing poverty in the working classes. Thatcher was notorious for cutting funding for state education; she even earned the nickname "Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher" for ending a program to offer state schoolchildren free milk at lunchtime. Private schools like the girls' school in this poem, meanwhile, were largely undisturbed during the Thatcher years, floating along on a cushion of tuition fees paid by wealthy families. Then as now, wealth and class made a huge difference in whether people had access to a solid education.
In this poem, Duffy subtly investigates the way that classism makes its way into schools. Poetry and art, the poem observes, can easily be transformed from freely available sources of inspiration and beauty into class markers. The Head's pompous, fragmentary Keats quotation suggests that, in the wrong hands, poetry can become a divisive shibboleth, a mere way of demonstrating that you're a well-educated (and well-to-do) person.
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More “Head of English” Resources
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External Resources
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The Poem Aloud — Listen to a witty performance of the poem.
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Duffy on the Power of Poetry — Read an article about Duffy's recent Pandemic Poetry project; Duffy discusses how poetry can help people through troubled times.
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Duffy as Poet Laureate — Listen to an interview with Duffy in which she discusses her appointment as the first female Poet Laureate of the UK.
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A Brief Biography — Learn more about Duffy's life and work via the Poetry Foundation.
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Duffy's Influence — Read an article by novelist Jeanette Winterson in which she discusses Duffy's poetry—and especially Duffy's belief that poetry should be a pleasure.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Carol Ann Duffy
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