Carol Ann Duffy: A poet laureate with a twist
Tony Blair feared she'd be too controversial for Middle England. But Carol Ann Duffy – a gay woman – is now expected to succeed Andrew Motion
By Jonathan Brown writing in The Independent, Monday, 27 April 2009

Carol Ann Duffy (pic left): has surprised followers by apparently changing her mind about accepting the role of Poet Laureate

Few positions in public life, apart, perhaps, from Pope or manager of the England football team, have proved quite so unattainable to women over the years as that of Britain's Poet Laureate. For centuries, from Ben Jonson onwards, the prestigious honour with its peppercorn salary and liquid remuneration of a "butt of sack" has been a masculine stronghold, handed down from man to man.
But that dominance could well be set to come to an end this week after it was let slip that the name of Carol Ann Duffy has been put forward for the Queen's approval to assume the role from the outgoing Laureate Andrew Motion. If all goes as planned, the Glasgow-born poet will become not only the first woman to hold the post but the first openly gay one.

In a sign of the increasing certainty surrounding her appointment, bookmakers yesterday stopped taking bets on the 53-year-old whose extraordinary range of monologues, love poems, children's rhymes, plays and librettos have made her a favourite beyond the traditional confines of literary festival audiences.

It is understood she has been chosen after a new selection process, introduced by Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary, in which the public was invited to offer their views on the search for the successor to a position whose previous incumbents included Lord Tennyson, Sir John Betjeman and Ted Hughes.

The full story at The Independent.