Amazing this has not happened yet in all of British history. Amazing. -Editor
Carol Ann Duffy becomes first female poet laureate
Duffy takes poetry’s most prestigious job, succeeding Andrew Motion, as a standard-bearer for women poets
‘I look on it as recognition of the great women poets we now have writing’ … Carol Ann Duffy. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe
Four hundred years of male domination came to an end today with the election of Carol Ann Duffy as poet laureate. Duffy, the widely-tipped favourite for the post, only agreed to accept the post ahead of poets Simon Armitage and Roger McGough because “they hadn’t had a woman”.
Speaking on Woman’s Hour this morning on Radio 4, she revealed that she had thought “long and hard” about accepting the offer.
“The decision was purely because they hadn’t had a woman,” she said. “I look on it as recognition of the great women poets we now have writing, like Alice Oswald.”