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The two poets in Motion's slipstream
29.04.09
The 53-year-old Glasgow-born poet has been the frontrunner for the position from the start despite the reservations surrounding her private life that ruled her out last time.
One of the best-selling poets in Britain, Duffy was at the centre of controversy when a poem she wrote about knife crime was censored by an exams board. She has been praised as a successor to Philip Larkin, who turned down the laureateship, and Ted Hughes, who took the role in 1984, as an accessible contemporary poet.
She would be the first woman and the first Scot to fill the laureateship.
Duffy, also a playwright and director of the writing school at Manchester Metropolitan University, is a Commander of the British Empire.
Simon Armitage
Considered by many to be a safer choice than Duffy, the 45-year-old Yorkshireman, a former probation officer, has earned a reputation for dry humour in his verse. He is said to have received the private backing of Motion and the influential Poetry Society. In 2000, he was made the UK's official Millennium Poet, and critics have hailed his "accessible, realist style and critical seriousness".
Armitage has published several volumes of poetry, including The Dead Sea Poems (1995). He has written two novels, Little Green Man (2001) and The White Stuff (2004), and writes for radio, television, film and the stage.
He has received many honours, including Sunday Times Author of the Year, the prestigious Forward Prize and an Ivor Novello Award.
Armitage also works at Manchester Metropolitan University.
