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.
Duffy, who was the UK’s poet laureate between 2009 and 2019, writes of the “rocks and rubble” in lines that have the reader contrasting the diamonds of the “great and good” with the ruins left by war.
The US president and his wife, Melania, arrived in Windsor on Wednesday morning to be met by the Prince and Princess of Wales, who escorted them to join the king and queen.
The monarch is hosting a state banquet for 160 guests in Windsor Castle’s St George’s Hall on Wednesday evening, at which Trump and Charles will give speeches.
Trump promised during his presidential election campaign to bring peace to Ukraine on day one of his second team in the White House, but the war waged by Russia continues.
Israel announced a “temporary” new route for residents to flee Gaza City on Wednesday, as it launched an major ground offensive after intense bombardment of the Palestinian territory’s main urban area.
Five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since the attack on 7 October by Hamas have been civilians, according to figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database.
In Duffy’s poem, entitled STATE/BANQUET, she plays with the ceremonial pomp of the meal and imagines a menu while seemingly inviting readers to think of the plight of those in peril.
“Let the trumpets sound on the bombsite,” she writes.
Trump is the first US president to be honoured with a second state visit to the UK. Those in their second term in the White House are usually invited for tea or lunch with the monarch instead.
Duffy, who was the first female poet laureate, gave an interview in 2018, near the end of her tenure, in which she spoke of being demoralised by world events.
“I think the past couple of years, with the evil twins of Trump and Brexit … I don’t remember ever having felt such a kind of lowering abstract stress coming from the political aura,” she said.
STATE/BANQUET
How it glitters and shines, The Grand Service,
among the rocks and the rubble,
laid out on a breezeblock horseshoe table,
six crystal glasses per setting.
It took eight servants three weeks to polish -
silver coated in a thin layer of gold -
even the concrete dust in the air seems glamourised
and the ruins are decked in the uplifting flags of
democracy.
To start, fillet of Dover sole filled with salmon mousse,
served on a bed of leeks with white wine sauce.
Poached Sandringham venison with truffles to follow,
then Key Lime Pie, and among the wines,
Chateau Pichon-Longueville Comtesse de Lalande, 1990.
Yum-yum. Let the trumpets sound on the bombsite
as the great and the good pick their way through,
and a famished child peers through a bullet-hole in a wall.
