Announcement of The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2003

THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT IS ISSUED BY THE PRESS SECRETARY TO HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN

The Queen has been pleased to approve the award of Her Majesty's Gold Medal for Poetry for the year 2003 to Miss U. A. Fanthorpe.

Background

U. A. Fanthorpe was born in Kent in 1929. She was educated in Surrey and at Oxford, and was Head of English for sixteen years at Cheltenham Ladies College. She then changed career, becoming a clerk/receptionist in a Bristol neuro-psychiatric hospital. This experience led her into poetry.

Her eight collections of poems are published by Peterloo Poets; her next collection, Queueing for the Sun, is due out in July.

U. A. Fanthorpe was Writer-in-Residence in Lancaster from 1983-85, and subsequently Northern Arts Fellow at Durham and Newcastle. In 1987 she became a freelance writer, giving readings around the country.

She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was made CBE in 2001, for services to poetry. Last year she was a member of the judging panel for The Queen's Golden Jubilee Poetry Competition. She lives in Gloucestershire.

The Gold Medal for Poetry was instituted by King George V in 1933 at the suggestion of the Poet Laureate, Dr John Masefield.

Recommendations for the award of the Medal are made by a committee of eminent men and women of letters, under the chairmanship of the Poet Laureate. The announcement of the award is made today on the birthday of Shakespeare.

The Medal is given for a book of verse published by someone from the United Kingdom or a Commonwealth realm. Originally the award was open only to British people, but in 1985 the scope was extended to include people from the Commonwealth realms.

The obverse of the medal bears the crowned effigy of The Queen. The idea of the reverse, which was designed by the late Edmund Dulac, is: "Truth emerging from her well and holding in her right hand the divine flame of inspiration - Beauty is truth and Truth Beauty".

Miss Fanthorpe will be presented with the Medal by The Queen at Buckingham Palace on 7th May.

For further information about U. A. Fanthorpe contact her on 01453 843105 or Peterloo Poets on 01822 833473.

PREVIOUS RECIPIENTS OF THE QUEEN'S GOLD MEDAL FOR POETRY

1934 Laurence Whistler

1936 W H Auden

1940 Michael Thwaites

1952 Andrew Young

1953 Arthur Waley

1954 Ralph Hodgson

1955 Ruth Pitter

1956 Edmund Blunden

1957 Siegfried Sassoon

1959 Frances Cornford

1960 John Betjeman

1962 Christopher Fry

1963 William Plomer

1964 R. S. Thomas

1965 Philip Larkin

1967 Charles Causley

1968 Robert Graves

1969 Stevie Smith

1970 Roy Fuller

1971 Sir Stephen Spender

1973 John Heath-Stubbs

1974 Ted Hughes

1977 Norman Nicholson

1981 D. J. Enright

1986 Norman MacCaig

1988 Derek Walcott

1989 Allen Curnow

1990 Sorley Maclean

1991 Judith Wright

1992 Kathleen Raine

1996 Peter Redgrove

1998 Les Murray

2000 Edwin Morgan

2001 Michael Longley

2002 Peter Porter