LONDON — For the first time since the post was created in 1668, Britain has selected a woman as its poet laureate.
Long-acclaimed Scottish-born poet Carol Ann Duffy, who has written on topics ranging from Shakespeare to Elvis Presley, becomes the official royal poet of the realm.
Duffy, 53, a gay single mother, who won the Dylan Thomas prize for poetry in 1989, is known for tackling down-to-earth subjects like street crime, prostitution and housework.
Her poetry has been hailed by fellow writers as original, imaginative and often bitingly satirical or plain humorous.
Duffy, selected to a 10-year term, follows a long line of illustrious literary names since 1668 when Charles II appointed John Dryden, creating the official title of poet laureate for life. Since then, the post has been filled by such figures as William Wordsworth, Lord Alfred Tennyson, Robert Bridges and, lately, Ted Hughes and Andrew Motion, who served for the newly reduced term of 10 years rather than life.
Duffy told BBC on Friday that her acceptance was not spontaneous.
“I did think long and hard about accepting — it’s been talked about for months — and I think my decision was purely because there hasn’t been a woman, and I kind of look on this (as) a recognition of the great women poets we now have writing, so I’ve decided to accept it for that reason.”
There’s nothing akin to blue-blood aristocracy in Duffy’s background. She was born in the low-income district of Glasgow in Scotland known as the Gorbals, and brought up in the central England town of Stafford, where her father worked for the local electricity board.
School teachers instilled in her a love of poetry, she said. And she grew up with music at home and ritual chanting and singing in her Catholic convent schooling.
One of Duffy’s poems, which looks at life through the eyes of a youth beguiled by knife crime, was recently banned from a school literature syllabus:
Today I am going to kill something. Anything.
I have had enough of being ignored and today
I am going to play God. It is an ordinary day,
a sort of grey with boredom stirring in the streets
In reply to the ban, Duffy wrote a poem on Shakespeare’s use of violence:
You must prepare your bosom for his knife,
said Portia to Antonio in which
of Shakespeare’s Comedies? Who killed his wife,
insane with jealousy? And which Scots witch
knew Something wicked this way comes? Who said
Is this a dagger which I see? Which Tragedy?
One of her acclaimed books, “The World’s Wife” is a collection of poems on life seen through the eyes of wives and life partners of famous people in fact and fiction. It also includes the plight of Elvis Presley’s supposed twin sister living as a nun with rock ‘n’ roll nostalgia:
A wimple with a novice-sewn
lace band, a rosary,
a chain of keys,
a pair of good and sturdy
blue suede shoes.
I think of it
as Graceland here,
a land of grace.
In the past, Duffy said she would never write a poem on the wedding of Prince Edward and Sophie, countess of Wessex. But she says she should have no problem working as the official royal poet.
Poetry is a transformative power, she said.
“I think poetry’s all about imagination, about looking at the ordinary and transforming it, it almost has a Midas touch. I think the monarchy has that. If you look at how the monarchy and the presence of the queen for the many, many decades she has been queen, can help, heal, transform, make something magic.
The appointment is approved by the monarch and the prime minister, who hailed her as a “truly brilliant modern poet.”
Duffy, said Prime Minister Gordon Brown, “has stretched our imaginations by putting the whole range of human experiences into lines that capture the emotions perfectly.”
The job is more of an honor than it is remunerative — Duffy’s stipend is 5,750 pounds sterling a year (around $8,600) and “a butt of sack,” or a barrel of Spanish wine, which translates into about 600 bottles of sherry.
Duffy plans to donate her salary to fund a prize to encourage young poets. But on hearing that Motion, her predecessor, has yet to receive his “butt of sack,” she declared that she was demanding hers “up front.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
