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13 May 2009
Poet Laureate to give reading in Sheffield
The new Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, will visit the University of
Sheffield to give a poetry reading next month (June) as part of the
University’s ‘New Ground’ public season of art, music and literature.
Carol Ann Duffy, who succeeds Andrew Motion, is the first female
laureate in the post's 341-year history. She is the latest in a line of
Poet Laureate’s which began with John Dryden and has included such great
names as William Wordsworth, Alfred Lord Tennyson and John Betjeman. The
laureate is officially appointed by the Queen on the advice of the
Government and, until Tony Blair established a 10-year tenure in 1999,
was a job for life.
Carol Ann Duffy is the author of numerous award-winning poetry
collections, plays, fairy tales and poetry for children. She was awarded
an OBE in 1995 and a CBE in 2002 for services to poetry.
Her poetry collections include Standing Female Nude (1985), winner of a
Scottish Arts Council Award; Selling Manhattan (1987), which won a
Somerset Maugham Award; The Other Country (1990); Mean Time (1993),
which won the Whitbread Poetry Award and the Forward Poetry Prize (Best
Poetry Collection of the Year); The World's Wife (1999); Feminine
Gospels (2002) and Rapture (2005), winner of the 2005 T.S. Eliot Prize.
Carol is one of a number of leading poets delivering a reading as part
of the ‘New Ground’ season to help celebrate the new home of the
University’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities.
Joining Carol on the programme of events is Irish poet Ciaran Carson.
His collections include The Irish for No (1987), winner of the Alice
Hunt Bartlett Award; Belfast Confetti (1990), winner of the Irish Times
Irish Literature Prize for Poetry; and First Language: Poems (1993),
winner of the T.S Eliot Prize. His most recent poetry collection, For
All We Know (2008), was shortlisted for both the 2008 T.S. Eliot prize
and the Costa Poetry award.
Poet Simon Armitage, who was also in the frame for the job of laureate,
recently kicked off the ‘New Ground’ poetry readings. Known for his
nervy, slangy, chatty poems, Simon is one of the most popular and
prominent poets of his generation. His poetry explores depths of
language with vitality and a sharp vision of the North, its classes,
dialects and living cultures. Simon joined the University’s own poets
for the reading, including Chris Jones, Liz Cashdan, Matthew Clegg (all
from the University’s Institute of Lifelong Learning) and Ben Wilkinson,
a published student at the University of Sheffield.
Commenting on his visit to Sheffield, he said: "I believe it is really
important for poets to attend poetry readings like this and read their
work aloud, especially as poets can become quite book bound. I always
love coming to Sheffield and often used to come and listen to bands
playing here. It is an ever changing and mysterious city and I really
admire the unique mix of the post-industrial and modern which this city
provides.”
Ben Wilkinson, the student who delivered the reading alongside Simon,
added: "It has been really exciting being able to perform alongside a
poet who has had a huge influence on my work. It is great that the
University has attracted poets of this calibre to come and share their
work for the launch of the new Jessop development, and I believe that
these events will spark the enthusiasm of others to follow the creative
writing pathway."
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