From the NS archive: Just the poet to make us yawn again 24 May 1999: Ted Hughes made the Poet Laureateship seem exciting. But for his successor New Labour has gone to a tired, old, Oxbridge voice.
The position of Poet Laureate in England – that is, the national poet ostensibly chosen by Buckingham Palace, but in fact, in recent decades, nominated by the Government and approved by the Queen – has long been controversial for its intermingling of art and politics. Several notable names – Walter Scott and Philip Larkin among them – have turned down the offer (which offers in exchange an annual stipend and a large quantity of sherry). Ted Hughes had held the position for 14 years until his death in 1998; his successor was to be appointed by a New Labour government. Michael Glover, writing here in the New Statesman in 1999, speculates that this was the opportunity for a “People’s Poet”, or at least one more modern than the man who ended up in the job: Oxford-educated, co
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