Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom

The role of Poet Laureate is an honorary position that entails no specific duties, although there is an expectation that the holder will write verse for significant national occasions.^[1][2] An annual honorarium is provided, which is currently set at £5,760.^[2] The holder is also traditionally rewarded with a butt of canary or sack, which is approximately equivalent to 477 litres (105 gallons) of sherry.^[1][3] Cash payments, however, have been presented as an alternative to wine: in 1952, for example, John Masefield was instead given £27 (equivalent to £579 in 2012).^[6][7]

In her first poem as poet laureate, Carol Anne Duffy tackled the scandal over British MPs expenses in the format of a sonnet.^[12] Her second, “Last Post“, was commissioned by the BBC to mark the deaths of Henry Allingham and Harry Patch, the last two British soldiers to fight in World War I.^[13] Her third, “The Twelve Days of Christmas 2009”, addresses current events such as species extinction, the climate change conference in Copenhagen, the banking crisis, and the war in Afghanistan.^[14] In March 2010, she wrote “Achilles (for David Beckham)” about the Achilles tendon injury that left England Footballer David Beckham out of the 2010 FIFA World Cup; the poem was published in The Daily Mirror and treats modern celebrity culture as a kind of mythicisation.^[15] “Silver Lining”, written in April 2010, acknowledges the grounding of flights caused by the ash of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull.^[16] On 30 August 2010 she premièred her poem “Vigil” for the Manchester Pride Candlelight Vigil in memory of LGBT people who have lost their lives to HIV/AIDS.^[17]

Duffy wrote a 46 line poem Rings for the 2011 wedding of Prince William and Catherine Middleton. The poem celebrates the rings found in nature and does not specifically mention the couple’s names. It begins for both to say and continues “I might have raised your hand to the sky / to give you the ring surrounding the moon / or looked to twin the rings of your eyes / with mine / or added a ring to the rings of a tree / by forming a handheld circle with you, thee, / …”. She wrote the verse with Stephen Raw, a textual artist, and a signed print of the work was sent to the couple as a wedding gift.^[18][19]