Former poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy has written a poem about Donald Trump's state visit to Britain that appears to reimagine the ceremonial banquet as taking place in a bombsite. The poem, titled STATE/BANQUET, contrasts the pomp and ceremony of the occasion with the devastation of war.
Duffy, who served as poet laureate from 2009 to 2019, writes of "rocks and rubble" and invites readers to compare the diamonds of the "great and good" with the ruins left by conflict. The poem describes a menu of Dover sole, Sandringham venison, and Key Lime Pie, served on a "breezeblock horseshoe table" amid concrete dust and ruins.
The US president arrived in Windsor on Wednesday morning, greeted by the Prince and Princess of Wales, before joining King Charles for a state banquet at Windsor Castle. Trump is the first US president to be granted a second state visit to the UK.
Duffy's poem comes against a backdrop of ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza. Trump has promised to bring peace to Ukraine, while Israel launched a major ground offensive in Gaza City on Wednesday. Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate that five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces since October 7 have been civilians.
Duffy, the first female poet laureate, previously expressed dismay at world events, citing the "evil twins of Trump and Brexit" as sources of "lowering abstract stress." Her poem concludes with a famished child peering through a bullet-hole in a wall, contrasting with the opulence of the banquet.
