Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each

Carol Ann Duffy, poet laureate and seer of hidden truths, once revealed the secret of her craft in these words: “Like the sand and the oyster, it's a creative irritant. In each poem, I'm trying to reveal a truth, so it can't have a fictional beginning.” Here she speaks with the voice of all artists who wrestle with the burdens of reality, transforming pain, discomfort, or disturbance into beauty. Just as the oyster, wounded by a grain of sand, creates a pearl, so too does the poet, pierced by life’s irritations, bring forth verses that shine with the light of truth.

The meaning of her words is layered. She tells us that art does not begin in comfort or ease, but in friction. A smooth path produces no pearl; a life untroubled produces little song. It is the sting of injustice, the ache of longing, the wound of memory that drives the artist to shape something enduring. This is the creative irritant—the grain of sand that torments but also inspires. And because the poet’s work is to reveal truth, Duffy insists it cannot be born of fiction’s convenience. It must spring from life’s rawness, its sharp edges, its real substance.

History confirms this principle. Consider the great poet Wilfred Owen, who wrote in the trenches of World War I. His poems were not spun from imagination, but from mud, blood, and agony. The irritant of war’s horror forced him to write verses that revealed the unbearable truth of conflict: that war is not glorious, but pitiless. His “Dulce et Decorum Est” endures because it was no fiction, but the pearl born of lived suffering. In this way, Owen and Duffy are kin across the centuries, united in the conviction that poetry must be rooted in the grit of truth.

Even beyond poetry, the same holds true. Martin Luther King Jr.’s speeches, though not poems in form, were poems in power. They were born not from fictional ease, but from the irritant of racial injustice. Each word was polished against resistance, until it gleamed with a truth that could not be ignored: that all men are created equal. His oratory shines as pearls of justice, because they were forged in the friction of oppression. Duffy’s insight stretches across all forms of expression—art becomes immortal only when born of the irritations of reality.

But let us not misunderstand. Duffy does not despise imagination—she honors it as the tool that shapes and polishes truth. Yet she insists that its beginning must be real. To start from fiction would be to build castles on air. To start from truth, however small or painful, is to plant seeds that grow into forests. Thus, the poet’s task is both painful and noble: to embrace the irritant rather than flee from it, to hold it until it transforms into something radiant.

The lesson for us is clear: do not curse the irritants in your life too quickly. The discomforts, the wounds, the frustrations you carry may be the very seeds of creation. Instead of fleeing them, face them; instead of silencing them, give them voice. If you are an artist, let them shape your work. If you are not, let them shape your wisdom, your compassion, your strength. For the irritant, if embraced, can become your pearl.

Practically, this means cultivating honesty and courage. When you feel the sting of injustice, name it. When you carry sorrow, give it form through words, art, or deeds. Do not seek a “fictional beginning,” an escape that denies reality. Instead, seek the truth hidden within your pain, and transform it into something that may guide, heal, or inspire others. This is not only the calling of the poet, but of every human soul who would live deeply and leave a mark upon the world.

Thus Duffy’s wisdom endures: like the sand and the oyster, the irritant is the beginning of beauty. Poetry, and indeed all true creation, must be born from the grit of reality, not the ease of invention. Let us, then, embrace our irritants with courage, and polish them with patience, until they shine as pearls of truth for generations to behold.