When Carol Ann Duffy became Britain's first female poet laureate in 2009, it was a surprise as Duffy has always been a political poet with very harsh criticism of government policies in her works. However, she made it clear that she would not be writing poems for the monarchy and the royal occasions unless she feels to. In an interview with Andrew McAllister in 1988, Carol Ann Duffy stated that her intention as a poet is "to present it, as it is" (72). She added, "poets don't have solutions, poets are recording the human experience." This manifesto informs her work as her political poems illustrate life in the multicultural Britain of the 1980s and 1990s with a close observation of the underprivileged and deprived in Standing Female Nude (1985), Selling Manhattan (1987), and The Other Country (1990). Duffy's laureate poems also reflect her concern to speak for the unvoiced, as for Duffy "poetry provides an important alternative voice to journalists or pundits or academics as a way of dealing with things that matter to us all" (Wroe, 2014, para 1). Thus, this paper is concerned with the political aspect of Duffy's laureate poems, focusing on her political poetry written during her poet laureateship between the years 2009-2019 mainly targeting politicians and highlighting public concerns. Accordingly, she speaks for the public, to present the social and emotional experience of living in contemporary Britain by way of highlighting public concerns of the British people by targeting her criticism to the politicians.

This paper is concerned with the Turkish view of the First World War as reflected through Mehmet Akif Ersoy’s ‘Çanakkale Şehitleri’ (To the Martyrs of Dardanelles) in comparison to the English war poets and argues that the Turkish attitude to the First World War is very different from that of the English war poets in terms of patriotism and sacrifice for one’s country. The most important feature of the English war poets who wrote during the First World War is that all of them, except Rupert Brooke, who died of malaria, participated in the war personally and reflected their personal war experiences and perspectives in their poems. The Ottoman Empire, which participated in the First World War as an ally of Germany, fought with the British in Çanakkale. There are many poems written by professional poets about the Dardanelles wars, in which the Turks won a decisive victory, but there is no known soldier-poet in Turkish poetry who participated in this war. Considering the poems written on the battles of Çanakkale, the first ones that come to mind are ""To the Martyrs of Dardanelles”, and Mehmet Akif Ersoy. The epic poem "To the Martyrs of Dardanelles", written by Mehmet Akif for the heroic martyrs who sacrificed themselves for the salvation of their country, is the poem that best reflects the Turks' perspective on this war. This article focuses on the difference between the Turkish side's view of the war, which is reflected in Mehmet Akif Ersoy's poem "To the Martyrs of Dardanelles”, from the British war poets in terms of patriotism and self-sacrifice ideas for the homeland. The perspective reflected by the English war poets was initially treated as a romantic ideal adorned with the propaganda of democracy, freedom and protection of Western civilization. However, after it was understood that the war had nothing to do with national security for England, it was just an environment of hell where millions of young politicians died in vain for the power struggle, it gave way to protest and disappointment. For the Turks, since this war meant the occupation of their lands in case of defeat, they defended their lands at the cost of their lives and did not allow Gallipoli passed by.