Poet Laureate Gives Arctic Monkeys the Thumbs Up

Posted on Jan 28th 2010 11:55AM by Stephen Dowling
Comments

Alex Turner, someone high up likes you. The UK's Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has come out as a fan of Sheffield's finest, Arctic Monkeys, as she prepared to host a charity event to raise money for earthquake relief in Haiti.

During the speech, she likened the frontman's lyrics to those of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen.

"Leonard Cohen's songs are poems, I saw him twice when he was touring here last year, Bob Dylan writes poems and the Arctic Monkeys write poems," she told the press agency the Press Association. "They (the Arctic Monkeys) are great lyric writers."

Duffy is hosting Poetry Live for Haiti, an event which will feature well-known poets including Andrew Motion, Roger McGough, John Agard, Dannie Abse, Gillian Clarke and Christopher Reid. Reid recently won the 2009 Costa Book of the Year.

Arctic Monkeys donated the white electric guitar Fender Stratocaster played by frontman Alex Turner in the band's first video for an to an online auction run by Oxfam and Glastonbury organiser Emily Eavis to raise money for relief in the earthquake-ravaged Caribbean state. Some 150,000 people are feared to have been killed by this month's quake.

Arctic Monkeys also favoured the Oxfam charity as the only store to stock the vinyl release of the first single, 'Crying Lightning,' from third album 'Humbug' released last year.