Carol Ann Duffy has been named Poet Laureate. Not only is she the first woman to claim the title, she is the first Scot! Which begs the question, in the 341 years* of the post, has there really been not one female poet, not one Scottish poet worthy of the task?
Duffy’s win is timely. As you may know, we are currently campaigning for women’s words to be inscribed on the Canongate Wall, alongside the 24 “quotations of relevance to Scotland and the parliament” spoken by men. Looking at this wall, this monument to great Scots, one would think that Scottish women had nothing to say, at least, nothing of relevance. Canongate Wall whispers with Hugh MacDiarmid’s words – not the lines of poetry etched into stone with careful reverence – the slipshod sneer: “Scottish women of any historical interest are curiously rare.” Canongate Wall whispers of women’s irrelevance.
Now that Carol Ann Duffy has been exalted as official poet of the United Kingdom, a crown none of her male Scottish counterparts can vaunt, will our parliament finally accept that women have got something to say? Will our parliament finally admit that women’s words are as important, as poetic, as crucial to Scottish history and identity as men’s words?
Duffy writes of Anon, the great unacknowledged female poet:
But I know best –
how she passed on her pen
like a baton
down through the years,
with a hey nonny
hey nonny
hey nonny no –
Anon.
As Duffy holds the pen passed down to her by her poetic foremothers, will our parliament finally acknowledge the relevance of women’s words?
For now, I suggest all sherry-drinkers raise a glass to Duffy, who will definitely be enjoying her laurel along with a butt of sack.**
*Over 600 years if you start the lineage with Chaucer and his less official, voluntary position.
**Approximately 600 bottles of sherry.
