The Lesbian Laureate?

Mari Hughes-Edwards, author of a forthcoming academic critique of Duffy, is still in two minds about the once openly feminist poet. Her book, the first ever full-length monograph on Duffy, will focus in part on the poet’s writing about sexuality and how this seems to have changed over time.

"If you closely scrutinise her 2005 collection Rapture, which charts the trajectory of a passionately doomed relationship,” says Mari, “you’ll see that it is a lesbian love story. But blink, and you’d miss it. I loved The World’s Wife, which takes the stories of famous historical and fictional men and looks at them through the eyes of the women hidden behind them."

Duffy has shunned publicity in recent years, granting only one interview after the publication of Rapture to the writer Jeanette Winterson. It was in this article that her shift away from lesbianism and feminism first became apparent.

"Duffy claimed that she didn’t want to be identified as a lesbian writer or icon, if the term was used to reduce her," says Mari. "She identified herself as a mother above all else – an essentialist stance, which is a little disappointing when you consider the effort she’s gone to poetically to get women recognised for more than their reproductive function."

"In that interview Duffy also said, rather unhelpfully for other women writers, that the gender issue on the poetry scene is ‘completely over’. For such a well-known public figure (even before the Laureateship Duffy’s work was on GCSE and A-level syllabuses) that’s a potentially dangerous thing to say. Surely the fact that it’s taken until 2009 to appoint a female laureate still speaks volumes?"

One argument is that Duffy’s writing has distanced itself from feminism and increasingly passed itself off as straight in the run-up to the Laureateship selection. Nevertheless, it is these "glorious contradictions" in Duffy’s work that have inspired Mari to undertake her critique.

"I’m intrigued by the distinction between the public persona she has created for herself and the feminist and lesbian voices in her earlier work. I don’t know whether it’s a conscious shift in order to be embraced by the literary establishment or deliberate ambiguity to protect her private life, which is fair enough, especially now she has a daughter, but my book will consider the extent to which Duffy has moved away from her old ideals. Frustrating as that is for feminists like me, it makes her a fascinating person to study."

Duffy’s rise to poetry’s highest echelons is an historic victory for women’s writing, making her the first female Poet Laureate in a long line going back to Jonson, Wordsworth and Tennyson. But the title is seen by many as a poisoned chalice.

"It’s great that we’ve finally got a woman in the post," says Mari, "but I’m not sure it will be good for Duffy’s work. Look at what it did for Andrew Motion, who suffered openly acknowledged writer’s block during his 10-year stint as Laureate. Writing poems to order, and for events like Edward and Sophie’s wedding, is surely a creative death.  

"Duffy’s appointment is a positive step for literature. It breaks the male-only mould and will inspire women writers. It’s also great that she’s going to establish a poetry prize with her annual Laureate honorarium. However, we still have a long way to go before women writers get the full recognition they deserve."

Mari Hughes-Edwards’s monograph, Suffering, Sexuality and the Poetry of Carol Ann Duffy, will be published by Manchester University Press in 2012.

What is the Poet Laureate?

The Poet Laureate is appointed by the government to write poems for state occasions and other important events.

Historically, the Laureate was the official poet of the royal household. The position as it is known today was created by Charles I for Ben Jonson in 1617 but, prior to that, many notable writers of the day had been informally known as the “poet laureate” including Geoffrey Chaucer and Edmund Spenser.

Carol Ann Duffy joins an elite group of esteemed poets to be awarded the title including John Dryden (1668), William Wordsworth (1843), Lord Tennyson (1850), John Betjeman (1972) and, more recently, Ted Hughes (1984) and Andrew Motion (1999).

The position carries a nominal salary, which traditionally includes some form of alcohol. Duffy has announced that she is giving her annual earnings from the Laureateship to the Poetry Society to foster new talent.