Gender Politics and the Poet Laureate

A final name has gone forward for the post of poet laureate, The Poetry Society states on its website. At last - this whole process has been far too long drawn out. I still don't think the post is relevant - in it's current form, anyway - and I pity anyone who has to write poems of praise or celebration for the Royal Family but, if there is to be a poet laureate appointed with the old rules intact, the rules should be bent a little to fit the changing world. The laureate has to be a woman this time.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that the last name left in the hat is either Carol Ann Duffy, Jo Shapcott or Jackie Kay, who are highest on the bookies' ranking table (it irks me that someone will possibly make more money on a bet on the laureate than the laureate will in a year, but that's another story). It's long past time for a woman poet to be recognised in England - officially at least - as an exemplar of the art.

It often seems that there are more women writing poetry extremely well now than there are men writing poetry. Certainly there are many more women wanting to write poetry. This cultural shift has to be acknowledged. And Shapcott, Kay and Duffy are superb poets, who have already risen to the challenge of communicating the importance of poetry in an accessible but uncompromising manner.

Media tittle-tattle merchants will doubtless have a field day if a woman is appointed. Arbiters of old-school gender politics such as the tabloids will froth and fulminate (especially the Daily Mail, especially if Duffy or Kay is the name announced). But stuff them. If the nation insists on clinging to the old fashioned notion of a laureate, so be it; what matters is that the role is taken by one the finest voices we have, someone who will further the work started by Andrew Motion, of modernising the post slowly from within.

For my money, that means it has to be Kay, Shapcott or Duffy.