First Woman and Openly Gay Poet Laureate of Britain!!

After 341 years of exclusively male poet laureates, Britain finally named a WOMAN--Carol Ann Duffy! You go, girl!!

The Mirror.UK.Com printed this previous unpublished poem by Duffy:

The Words Of Poems

The words of poems are nails which tack the wind to a page, so that the gone hour when your kite pulled you over the field blows in your hair.

They're hand-mirrors, a poem's words, holding the wept tears on your face, like a purse holds small change, or the breath that said things.

They're fishing-nets, scooping sprats and tiddlers out of a stream or the gleaming trout that startled the air when you threw it back. The words of poems are stars, dot-to-dots of the Great Bear, the Milky Way your telescope caught; or breves filled with the light of the full moon you saw from your bedroom window; or little flames like the tongues of Hallowe'en candles.

The words of poems are spells, dropping like pennies into a wishing-well, remember the far splash? They're sparklers, scrawling their silver loops and hoops on the night, again in your gloved fist on November the Fifth.

They're goldfish in their sad plastic bags at the fair, you stood there. The words of poems are coins in a poor man's hat; the claws of a lost cat.

The words of poems are who you were.