A belated hurrah for The lovely Carol Ann Duffy for being appointed Poet Laureate, the first woman in its 341 years history and the first Scot too although she left when she was 6 I think for the south. I heard her read at the Poetry Now festival and she had the audience in the palm of her hand. I wonder what her agenda will be? Andrew Motion (me and Andy, we're like that) made great efforts in getting poetry into UK schools off the exam syllabus and also set up the Poetry Archive. Go and have a poke around there is you've got time to kill.
And then Ruth Padel was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford. Good on yer. Shame about the controversy about Derek Walcott but it shouldn't reflect on her achievement. Have you ever read her book of columns examining poems? 52 ways to look at a poem? Worth studying.
And now she's gone and resigned...what a shame she felt she had to. What now?
2 comments:
D'oh
Oxford poet resigns over vote row
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/arts_and_culture/8067432.stm
That's terrible. What a shame. Now she'll always be remembered for this.
I've read posts describing Ruth Padel as a second rate poet. Granted she has yet to win the Nobel Prize but I didn't see any first rate poets calling her anything but worthy.
Post a Comment