As poet laureate prepares to step down, the succession race begins

Carol Ann Duffy will finish her decade in the role in May, but the long process of choosing the next appointee begins this weekend

• Simon Armitage: The highest office in poetry
  

Carol Ann Duffy ends Sincerity, her last collection as the UK’s poet laureate, with a peaceful image of retirement, the poet looking up “from the hill at Moniack, / to see my breath / seek its rightful place / with the stars, / with everyone else who breathes”. But the search for her replacement begins this Saturday, with the announcement of a panel of experts to guide the selection.

The steering group assembles the great and the good of the poetry world, from the director of the Poetry Society to the artistic director of the Ledbury poetry festival, with space alongside for the leading lights of the literary establishment.

Who knows which way the pitch will turn

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