Make Duffy poet laureate because she's openly gay, says Morgan

Published on Monday 27 April 2009 22:52

SCOTLAND'S "Makar" Edwin Morgan backed Carol Ann Duffy as a future poet laureate yesterday because she is an openly gay woman.

Morgan, frail and wheelchair-bound but clearly speaking his mind on his 89th birthday, called Glasgow-born Duffy a fine writer who would bring "some fireworks" to the job.

"She's a good writer and she would be the first woman laureate; it would be good to encourage that," he said, as an archive devoted to his work was inaugurated yesterday.

"Because she's openly gay, some people wouldn't like that at all. I think she ought to take it just for that reason."

The current poet laureate, Andrew Motion, steps down this week after ten years and reports at the weekend suggested Duffy would be asked to succeed him.

Duffy was a favourite for poet laureate before Motion was named in 1999, but it is thought that then prime minister Tony Blair felt her sexuality made her too controversial for the royal appointment.

If appointed, she would be the first Scot and the first woman to become poet laureate since the the role was created in 1670.

Duffy was in Ireland yesterday, and there was no official confirmation that she had been offered or accepted the post.

Morgan was named Scotland's Makar, or national poet, in 2004. He arrived at the Scottish Poetry Library in Edinburgh by taxi from a Glasgow care home yesterday for the opening of the new Edwin Morgan Archive.

The occasion brought an outpouring of affection for the man regarded as a national cultural treasure.

Edinburgh's own Makar, the poet Ron Butlin, cut a chocolate birthday cake inscribed with the first three lines of Morgan's poem, The Computer's First Birthday Card. Imagining a birthday message written by a computer, it read: "Many returns happy/ Many turns happier/ happy turns remain."

The poet and playwright Liz Lochhead, the Glasgow Makar, recalled how reading Morgan's work for the opening of the Scottish Parliament was her "toughest gig ever". She read his poem A View of Things.

Culture Minister Michael Russell told him:

"What you have done over the years has meant a great deal to me. We were reading a poem not because it was part of a course but because it spoke to every single one of us."

The contents of the archive, from the collection of the poet's friend and publisher Hamish Whyte, range from rare first editions and pamphlets to audio- visual records of interviews and readings. It includes his desk, chair, and a bottle of absinthe he entertained visitors with.

Morgan said: "An archive has tended to be in the past once you're dead. I'm not dead yet, but it's a nice idea.

"People can see an introduction to your poetry and it involves voice, music, song.

"I'm afraid I introduced some younger fellows to absinthe. It's very bad."

Asked who should be considered as laureate, Morgan said: "Lots of poets are writing very well, some are very good but not popular. Like Jeremy Prynne. He's a difficult poet, he writes many different types of poetry." Prynne is regarded as one of England's most important poets, but has been famously obscure.

"Prynne is trying to keep the language going, with interesting and surprising things," Morgan said. "He won't get it, he's too difficult, it wouldn't be popular."

Morgan, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer several years ago, said the most recent poetry he had read were two volumes given to him by a carer in the nursing home, classics by Ezra Pound and Emily Dickinson.

He noted that in the past Duffy had drawn the line at royal weddings. She said several years ago: "I will not write a poem for Edward and Sophie. No self- respecting poet should have to."