poetry news

carol ann duffy gets the poet laureate. the best that can be said of it is that it gets poetry in the news. duffy reads a poem, the bbc has a voiceover while she's doing it. it may make the news but listen to poetry. oh no! almost immediately they pruriently skirt arund the issue of her being a woman and a lesbian! as if these too categorisations might somehow prevent her writing poetry. not that anyone should be too surprised after a week in which the britsh newspapers, yes all of them, are awash with the story of how a plain woman can sing a song. wow!

unfortunately being a woman and a lesbian almost certainly has been a limiting factor for the likes of ua fanthorpe, who departed these shores this week and who should, and most likely would have made a better poet laureate than andrew motion. she wasn't my favourite poet but in looks she reminds me of my mum and her poetry and her reading of it puts me in mind of a wordless something that will always be england in my head. my wee mum has never written a poem and classes herself as 'just a housewife'. maybe now she's happy with that but both of us know she could have done and been much, much more.