Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Getting her coat … current UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy.
Getting her coat … current UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian
Getting her coat … current UK poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

As poet laureate prepares to step down, the succession race begins

This article is more than 5 years old

Carol Ann Duffy will finish her decade in the role in May, but the long process of choosing the next appointee begins this weekend

Carol Ann Duffy ends Sincerity, her last collection as the UK’s poet laureate, with a peaceful image of retirement, the poet looking up “from the hill at Moniack, / to see my breath / seek its rightful place / with the stars, / with everyone else who breathes”. But the search for her replacement begins this Saturday, with the announcement of a panel of experts to guide the selection.

The steering group assembles the great and the good of the poetry world, from the director of the Poetry Society to the artistic director of the Ledbury poetry festival, with space alongside for the leading lights of the literary establishment.

The Society of Authors’ chief executive Nicola Solomon, who is also serving on the panel, welcomed the opening up of a process that been shrouded in mystery since James I offered Ben Jonson a pension of 100 marks, declaring the society “very pleased to be part of a panel made up of representatives from across the arts sector covering a range of ages, backgrounds and UK regions”.

The culture secretary Jeremy Wright hailed Duffy for “her dedicated service in championing poetry to the nation”.

“I look forward to working with a new advisory panel,” Wright said, “that reflects the whole of the UK and the new ways we consume poetry, in electing her successor.”

But with the panel set to present a shortlist to the secretary of state at the DCMS and the prime minister due to make a final decision to put forward for the Queen, the poet John Agard doesn’t think much has changed.

“I’m certain that the prime minister is very familiar with the iambic pentameter,” Agard said. “But since poets don’t have the final say in politics, logically speaking there’s no reason why politicians should have the final say in poetry.”

Agard paid tribute to the way Duffy has transformed the position, supporting the work of other poets and founding the Ted Hughes award.

“There’s no question that Carol Ann has done a wonderful job,” he said, “because she made the laureateship connect across the board.”

The poet Jackie Kay, currently serving as Scottish makar, agreed, declaring that Duffy’s time as the UK’s foremost advocate for poetry has been “absolutely spectacular”.

“She’s been an inspiring and extraordinary laureate,” Kay said, “and she’s changed the role for all time. It’s been a groundbreaking and a ground-shifting laureateship.”

Poetry itself has changed since Duffy’s appointment in 2009, Kay added. “It’s more readily available, people feel they have a right to it – both to write it and to consume it in whatever way they choose, whether that be reading a book, watching a video or seeing a poster in the underground.” There has also been a massive explosion in performance poetry, she continued. “The audiences for poetry have got bigger and bigger.”

Despite the changes to the position, Kay isn’t throwing her hat into the ring. “I can’t see how I could possibly be the makar and the poet laureate,” she said. “I don’t think the powers that be would want to combine the two.”

With Duffy becoming the first female laureate in the institution’s four-century history, black and minority ethnic poets should certainly be considered for the position, Kay continued, citing Lemn Sissay, Benjamin Zephaniah, Patience Agbabi and Imtiaz Dharker as strong candidates. “It would be inspiring and exciting to have a black poet laureate,” she said.

For Agard, it’s about time the UK laureate was black. “A black poet should not be seen in that Victorian way as part of a cabinet of curiosities,” he said. “It’s part of the British fabric of being, it’s not an anomaly.” And he’s not ruling anything out. “If I may borrow a cricketing metaphor, who knows which way the pitch will turn.”

With poets such as Simon Armitage, Daljit Nagra and Vahni Capildeo also in the frame, it’s impossible to know who will be receiving the laureate’s traditional butt of sack when the decision is announced in May 2019. But Wendy Cope, who has been a prominent candidate since the selection of Andrew Motion in 1999, has ruled herself out of contention this time around.

“I was probably a bit over the top when I said the post should be abolished,” she said. “What I hate is the publicity leading up to an appointment, with odds at William Hill and so on. If it’s a competition, it is one that many poets have no interest in winning.”

While it isn’t a job she has ever wanted to do, Cope is sanguine about the role of politicians in filling the position. “I doubt if the prime minister has much to do with it,” Cope said. “She’s got much more important things to think about.”

Kay is hoping that Theresa May, a prime minister famed for relaxing by watching NCIS, follows the advice of her expert panel. “I wouldn’t have any faith in her making the ultimate decision,” Kay said.

Most viewed

Most viewed