U.A. Fanthorpe Has Died

Sad news. U.A. Fanthorpe has died. She was one of the most beloved English poets of our time (and The Guardian poll choice for poet laureate ten years ago) – and a Queen’s Gold medal winner. Along with Cope and Duffy, she formed a triumvirate of widely-known, popular British women poets who also wrote serious verse, if not always seriously.

I was very pleased when she donated a recording of one of her poems to the Oxfam poetry CD project, Life Lines. One of the things that most impressed me about her was that – apart from her starting publishing at 50 and going from strength to strength thereafter – she was loyal to her small press publisher, Peterloo, over her career. She will be missed.

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