The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2002

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

The Queen has been pleased to approve the award of Her Majesty's Gold Medal for Poetry for the year 2002 to Mr Peter Porter.

Background

Peter Porter was born in Brisbane in 1929 and has been writing poetry since he left school. He worked in Brisbane before coming to England in 1951 to pursue a literary career.

He has also worked as a clerk, bookseller and advertising writer and in 1968 became a full-time poet, journalist, reviewer and broadcaster.

In recent years he has divided his time between Britain and his home country.

In 1983 he won the Duff Cooper Memorial Prize for his first book of Collected Poems and in 1988 he won the Whitbread Poetry Award for the Automatic Oracle.

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".

Peter Porter will be presented with the Medal by The Queen at Buckingham Palace later in the summer.

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 Francis 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