Carol Ann Duffy is the new Poet Laureate

The headline says it all really! Carol Ann Duffy will later today be announced as the new Poet Laureate, taking over from Andrew Motion. She is the first female poet to hold the position, and will do so for ten years. She has decided to donate her yearly honorarium of £5,750 to the Poetry Society to fund a new prize. Which is nice.

A University of Liverpool graduate, Carol Ann Duffy has published over thirty books for both children and adults, most recently Rapture (T. S. Eliot Award, 2005) and The Hat (Poetry Book Society Children's Choice, 2007). In 2000 she received the CBE for her contribution to poetry. But arguably the highlight of her career was an appearance at our Shipping Lines Literary Festival in November 2008...

So, let's have some May Day optimism, and hope that she can help to put poetry back where it belongs: at the heart, and indeed soul, of national life.