Scottish poet Douglas Dunn wins Queen's medal

BBC News - 18 December, 2013

 

  Douglas Dunn's Elegies, about the death of his first wife, was heavily praised

Scottish poet Douglas Dunn has won the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry 2013, in recognition of his lifetime contribution to literature.

A protege of Philip Larkin, Dunn is best known for Elegies (1985), a moving account of his first wife's death.
Committee chair and poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy said he was one of "the greatest poets Scotland has produced".
She added that his work could be "both jocular and wise, sensory or bookish, as well as powerfully moving".

Born in Inchinnan, Renfrewshire in 1942, Dunn was brought up in a house where reading was not a common pastime, and left school without the qualifications to enter university.
He worked as a librarian for several years and, during a stay of employment in Ohio, USA, he was called up to serve in Vietnam.
To avoid the draft, he returned to Britain with his wife Lesley Balfour, where he immediately enrolled at the University of Hull to study English.

He graduated with first class honours in 1969, the same year he published his debut collection of verse.
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