Carol Ann Duffy (right), out lesbian, mother, playwright and poet has just been named as the first female Poet Laureate in the UK. She follows in the hallowed footsteps of people such as John Dryden, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, William Wordsworth and, more recently, Ted Hughes.

Duffy was in line to pick up the prestigious position in 1999 but was pipped at the post by Andrew Motion. The reason? Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair was “worried about having a homosexual poet laureate because of how it might play in middle England”, according to the Sunday Times.

She wasn’t too disappointed though and, at the time said, “I will not write a poem for Edward and Sophie. No self-respecting poet should have to.”

Things have changed. Middle England is seen as ready for her and she is ready for them. At the announcement of her achievement, Duffy said she was “very honoured and humbled”.

Carol Ann Duffy came into her own in 1985 with the publication of Standing Female Nude, a collection of poems which won her praise and admiration from the poet community and readers alike.

Her work has been described as “minutely compressed novels”, telling the stories of people from all walks of life; new born babies, dummies, painters, prostitutes, a writer and  American Indians to name just a few.

Some of her poems became art of the English GCSE course in the UK, however, last year Education for Leisure was removed from the syllabus as it referred to knife violence. Duffy wrote a poem in reply which  highlighted violence in other fiction on the syllabus, called Mrs Schofield’s GCSE.

This was in no way the only fight Carol Ann has fought over her years of writing. Sexism was rife when she started putting pen to paper.

“In the 1970′s, when I started on the circuit, I was called a poetess. Older male poets were both incredibly patronising and incredibly randy. If they weren’t patting you on the head, they were patting you on the bum,” she told the BBC in 2005.

Carol Ann lives in Manchester with her partner, and fellow poet, Jackie Kay and her 10 year-old daughter, Ella.

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