[New-Poetry] Carol Ann Duffy gets the laurels

[Michael Snider]

On Fri, May 1, 2009 at 1:11 PM, <jforjames at aol.com> wrote:

> What do people think about this snip from the NYT article:
>
> Ms. Duffy, 53, is known for writing accessible, often witty poems on a wide
> range of topics, many of them to do with the minutiae of everyday life. She
> succeeds Andrew Motion, who has just completed his 10-year term.
>
> The culture secretary, Andy Burnham, called Ms. Duffy “a towering figure in
> English literature today and a superb poet.”
> -
> I know it's typical bureaucratic hyperbole, but do you think it's possible
> to be a 'towering figure' in any nation's literature by writing "witty
> poems...many to do with the minutiae of everyday life"?
> Finnegan
>

Not so different from Wendy Cope, who rejected the post (wants it abolished)
or from Philip Larkin (also rejected it), who many consider the finest
English poet of the second half of the last century - or, for that matter,
from Emily Dickinson.
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