An evening billed as “Carol Ann Duffy and Friends” held at Kings Place in London last week showed Duffy's success in galvanizing the poetry scene since being appointed as Britain's first woman poet laureate last May. The more than 400 seats in the hall were packed out for the poetry reading, in which Duffy introduced fellow poets Sarah Maguire and Daljit Nagra to the audience. The three poets read from their work in a responsive, intimate atmosphere. Musical interludes were provided by the Scottish musician and actor John A. Sampson on an array of woodwind instruments, including recorders, a crumhorn, a shepherd's pipe and a Chinese gourd pipe. The event was organized by Poet in the City, which marries the business world with the world of poetry. Its chief executive Graham Henderson said Poet in the City aims “to promote the love of poetry in new audiences. A quarter of our audiences are coming to their first poetry reading.” He praised Duffy's initiative in commissioning new work on specific themes from British poets, published in the Guardian newspaper's Saturday Review. The first batch of commissions focused on women poets, the second on war poetry, and the third on poems on ageing by senior poets. Duffy said the most exciting thing about British poetry is its diversity. After the readings by Maguire and Nagra she commented: “I feel I've been on so many journeys this evening.” The Lahore-born Scottish Muslim poet, artist and documentary maker Imtiaz Dharker had also been due to join the poets, but she was unavoidably held up in India. In the 11 months since becoming poet laureate Duffy has published a stream of topical poems, beginning in June with “Politicians” on the scandal of parliamentarians' expenses. She wrote the poignant “Last Post” to mark the deaths last July of the last two surviving British soldiers from the First World War, Henry Allingham and Harry Patch. In “12 Days of Christmas” she encompasses concerns ranging from the war in Afghanistan to celebrity culture, corruption in public life and floods in the Lake District. When David Beckham suffered in mid-March the injury to his Achilles tendon which seems to have ended his hopes of playing for England in the World Cup, Duffy penned “Achilles (for David Beckham).” She is now planning to write “something special” to mark the 50th anniversary of the ITV soap opera Coronation Street. The poems Duffy read at Kings Place included “Atlas”. Written to celebrate National Poetry Day on Oct. 8 last year, and broadcast on BBC Radio, the poem concerns the weight placed on the mythical Atlas's shoulders by the world's burdens. Duffy said that these days “bees buzz in and out” of her poems. “Virgil's Bees”, published last September, anticipated the Copenhagen Climate Change conference in December. It begins: “Bless air's gift of sweetness, honey / from the bees, inspired by clover, / marigold, eucalyptus, thyme, / the hundred perfumes of the wind. Duffy is renowned, however, as a love poet. The poem “New Vows” marks the end of a love affair. Two of the poems she read at Kings Place arose from the death of her mother in 2005. “Water” relates to being at her mother's side as she died in a hospice. “Premonition” was written in memory of the poet UA Fanthorpe, who died last April. Sarah Maguire is founder and director of the Poetry Translation Centre in London and works with poets and translators in many languages. She is the author of four poetry collections, the most recent being “The Pomegranates of Kandahar”, and editor of “Flora Poetica: The Chatto Book of Botanical Verse.” A recent Maguire poem depicts her street in London after a snowfall. She describes the poem as “a love poem about snow, or a snow poem about love.” Another new poem was triggered by a visit to Istanbul during which she read Orhan Pamuk's book on the city which mentions the wooden mansions on the Bosphorus known as yalis. In Maguire's poem “The Combustible Yalis of the late Ottoman Era” the yalis of the rich burn one by one. The fireballs are “incandescent blooms of rose and old gold, scarlet, topaz, like flowers repeating on Ottoman carpets woven by the deft-fingered children of the poor.” Maguire read several poems from “The Pomegranates of Kandahar”, including “Europe” in which young men on the coast at Tangier gaze longingly at night over the strait of Gibraltar at Europe. The moving poem “The Invisible Mender”, from her collection of that title, is dedicated to the mother who gave her up for adoption. Daljit Nagra is the son of migrants from Indian Punjab to England, where he was born in 1966. His poems relate to the experiences of British-born Indians, and play with language based on the English spoken by immigrants whose first language is Punjabi, a hybrid some refer to as ‘Punglish'. His collection “Look We Have Coming to Dover!” attracted much attention when published by Faber in 2007. It won the Forward Poetry Prize for best first collection and was shortlisted for several other prizes. In 2008 Nagra won the South Bank Show/Arts Council Decibel Award. Nagra has crafted an original, arresting poetic language charged with humor. “Darling & Me” is narrated by a newlywed husband delighted with his bride, “so I phone di dimply mississ,/ putting some gas on cookah,/ bonus pay I bringin”. In “Singh Song” a newlywed shopkeeper serves customers downstairs while upstairs his bride runs a dating agency on the net. Nagra's many fans will have to wait until 2011 for the publication of his next anthology.
