23 April 2007

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

The Queen has approved the award of Her Majesty's Gold Medal for Poetry for the year 2007 to James Fenton.

Biography
James Fenton was born in Lincoln in 1949 and won the Newdigate Prize for Poetry while studying at Oxford University. He has published numerous books and translations, including The Memory of War (1982), Children in Exile (1983), Out of Danger (1994), Selected Poems and a history of the Royal Academy of Art (of which he is Antiquary) in 2006. He has also worked as a political journalist, drama and literary critic, war and foreign correspondent, and columnist. He was Oxford Professor of Poetry from 1994 to 1999 and his poetry has won him numerous awards.

History of the Gold Medal for Poetry
The Gold Medal for Poetry was instituted by King George V in 1933 at the suggestion of the then Poet Laureate, 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 (Professor Andrew Motion). The announcement of the award is made today, the probably birth date of Shakespeare in 1564.

The Medal is given for a book of verse published by someone from the United Kingdom or a Commonwealth realm. 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 is emerging from her well and holding in her right hand the divine flame of inspiration - Beauty is Truth and Truth Beauty".

Media information
Mr Fenton will be presented with the medal by The Queen at Buckingham Palace during the Summer.

For further information about Mr Fenton please contact Pat Kavanagh at Peters Fraser & Dunlop (email: pkavanagh@pfd.co.uk ; tel 020 7344 1000).

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
2003 U A Fanthorpe
2004 Hugo Williams
2006 Fleur Adcock