Hard-hitting Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, the first woman and first lesbian poet to be so honoured, will be providing the highlight event for the fourth Marlborough Literary Festival in September.
And the remarkable Duffy, who grew up in a working class family – her father was a shipbuilding fitter, shop steward and local Labour councillor — has some surprising links with the town.
As a teenage poet, Duffy, now 57, was handed a poetry prize by Sir John Betjeman, the then Poet Laureate, who was a noted pupil at Marlborough College before going to university.
It was at the College too that Duffy’s predecessor as Poet Laureate, Sir Andrew Motion, who held the post for a decade, appeared at last year’s College Summer School, reading from one of his novels.
And it was in tribute to one of the College’s most celebrated students, Kate Middleton, that Duffy, whose work has criticised expense-fiddling MPs, wrote a 46-line poem Rings for her 2011 royal wedding to Prince William.
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, / …”.
Duffy wrote the verse with Stephen Raw, a textual artist, and a signed print of the work was sent to the couple, now the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with their first child on its way, as a wedding gift.
And no doubt she will be writing a tribute when their potential heir to the throne is born.
Two other celebrated authors – and a wine expert — are joining Duffy at the Marlborough LitFest, which takes place on the weekend of September 27—29, and has the local financial firm of Brewin Dolphin as its lead sponsor.
They are award-winning biographer Claire Tomalin, whose novelist and playwright husband Michael Frayn, was one of the stars of last year’s festival, and the controversial author and columnist AN Wilson, plus wine writer Malcolm Gluck.
Claire Tomalin, who celebrates her 80th birthday in June, is the author of admired biographies of Samuel Pepys, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy and in particular Charles Dickens, while AN Wilson’s last book, two years ago, was Adolf Hitler: A Short Biography.
A survey showed that broadcaster and wine writer Malcolm Gluck was the fifth most recognised wine critic in the country.
