Don Paterson strikes gold...

Scottish poet Don Paterson has become the latest recipient of the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. Created in 1933 by King George V, the Medal is awarded annually by the monarch for a book of verse publihsed in the Commonwealth. Traditionally the award is announced on Shakespeare's supposed birthday, April 23rd; however, this year the poet was named in the 2010 New Year's Honour List. Paterson, who recently won the £10,000 Forward Poetry Prize in October, was awarded the honour for his poetry anthology 'Rain'. Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy chaired the judging panel, and said Paterson's work was 'poetry of bravery and conviction...acutely attuned to the most intimate of human exchanges'. The Medal has previously been won by names such as T.S. Eliot, John Betjeman and W.H. Auden.

Religious approval for Hughes?...

Poet Ted Hughes may be honoured with a plaque in Westminster Abbey's Poets' Corner. The Dean of Westminster said that he had received a number of letters persuading him to the cause; a cause supported by fellow poets Seamus Heaney and Andrew Motion. A former Poet Laureate, Hughes is best known for his marriage to Sylvia Plath, whose subsequent suicide in 1963 shocked the literary world. If selected for a plaque, Hughes would be the first since the man he succeeded as Poet Laureate in 1984, John Betjeman; and would join the likes of Thomas Hardy, William Blake and T.S. Eliot. Hughes died in 1998, and is described by Heaney as 'one of the vital presences in 20th century poetry.'