[Janet Kenny]

Shaun,
I''m not defending the poem. In Wagner's "Meistersinger" Hans Sachs tells the young genius not to despise the conventional and unoriginal. It's keeping the seat warm for the real thing. We all know that the real thing was available for them had they perceived it but at least the idea may impinge that there is something called "poetry". Kids raised on popular rubbish can only find this a little more challenging.

[John Whitworth]

Cultural Note. Actually Janet, re Radio Times, things HAVE changed. Most households, including mine, do not take Radio Times. They take What's On TV or TV Quick or something like that , at half the price. For maximum coverage the poem would have to appear simultaneously in The Sun, the Daily Mirror, the Daily Mail, the Guardian, the Times and the Daily Telegraph. Or better, perhaps on a Sunday in The Sunday Times and the News of the World.

[Mary Meriam]

May the poem rapidly fade into oblivion.

[Julie Steiner]

Speaking of forgetable, am I the only one who remembers her December 2008 offering...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008...arol-ann-duffy

...which was released in an illustrated gift edition just last month?
http://collectedmiscellany.com/2009/...rol-ann-duffy/

See, the trouble is, Christmas will probably come next year, too.

[T.S. Kerrigan]

I was fortunate enough to meet and talk with Carol Ann in September when I was invited to the Italian Alps to read my poetry. It was reminiscent of a meeting I had years ago with Mary Robinson at the Getty Museum in Malibu. Both women seemed to me dynamic and powerful and I had a heady sense of history being made. I congratulated Carol Ann for standing up for her own principles in discussions with the royal family. She is going to be, I believe, a powerful force for those principles, and just think of it, she is the first woman to be so honored in the history if England. Where are all the feminists on the Sphere? Where are alll those championing women's rights?

I tend to agree that the Christmas poem may not be her best work, but I don't think anyone can question the merits of the body of poetry she has produced. How can we lose sight of the ascendance of a woman to a place of such significance oveer a single poem?