! ! New Poetess Laureate For Uk Poem by Michael Shepherd

This is a formal announcement today:
we have a new Poet Laureate.. hip hip hooray..

‘But who is he? Oh.. it’s a she-poet Laureate…?
so (because I don’t read poetry, of course..)
is that something I should shout hooray at?
or have committees once again, backed the wrong horse? ’

Well, she says she’s not ‘going to write
for Edward and Sophie’…
she’s Sapphic and butch, and called
Carol Ann Duffy

and you can guess, from what she says
that there’ll be no Royal seal in wax
on her democratic classless ways…

(Right now, Supplement sub-editors are trawling her stuff
to find something printable
that’s ‘poetic’ enough…)

The story is, ‘she’d have got it on the last occasion’
except for the aforementioned Sapphic persuasion…

But aren’t poets supposed to be beyond such trivial pursuits? …
and just write poetry and truth; in high heels or in boots?

(And there’s always the hope, with or without Royal permission,
she might say something new about the female condition…)

so, Edward and Sophie with your middle-class morals –
watch out! We could be in for some hard-hitting quarrels
re ‘The Nature of Poetry’ … and about time too:
since poetry’s subject is the deepest me and you…

so the Forum poets here (in this empty music-hall)
hope you stir us up, and have a prancing, dancing Artists’ Ball;

as with controversial old Ted Crow, Poet Laureate and toughie,
we shan’t expect respect – coz you ain’t no fluffy Duffy…

Now chaps - gold watch and thanks to Andrew’s poetic potion:
you could call it - for what words are worth - as
‘tranquillity, recollected in emotion’…

…But sadly, already, in these economic downturn times –
Blackwells offer ‘3 for 2’ on CarolAnn Duffy’s rhymes…