Pakistan-born British poet Imtiaz Dharker has received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry, one of the prizes and awards within the gift of the reigning monarch of the United Kingdom. Instituted in 1933 by King George V, on the suggestion of the then Poet Laureate, John Masefield, the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry “is given for a book of verse published by someone from the United Kingdom or a Commonwealth realm. Recommendations for the award of the medal are made by a committee of eminent men and women of letters, under the chairmanship of the Poet Laureate.”
I can’t do better than quote own bio from her website:
Imtiaz Dharker is a poet, artist and documentary film-maker. Her collections of poems include Purdah (Oxford University Press), Postcards from god, I speak for the devil and The terrorist at my table (all published by Penguin India and Bloodaxe Books UK), Leaving Fingerprints (Bloodaxe Books UK) and Over the Moon (September 2014, Bloodaxe Books UK). Recipient of the Cholmondeley Award and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, her poems are on the British GCSE and A Level English syllabus, and she reads with other poets at Poetry Live! events all over the country to more than 25,000 students a year. She has had ten solo exhibitions of drawings in India, London, New York and Hong Kong. She scripts and directs films, many of them for non-government organisations in India, working in the area of shelter, education and health for women and children.
Given the way the Medal is granted, there is no question of the recent events in Pakistan having influenced the choice, but it’s a timely one nonetheless.
