Recent Developments and Poet Laureate Campaign
Shortly after a heart attack in January 2008, Barker began solo gigging again.
He has also, since taking up residence in Wales, become fluent in the native tongue. In 2008 he was awarded the NIACE Inspire Award as Welsh Learner of the Year, and recited his poem "Have you Got Any News of the Iceberg?" in Welsh at the presentation in Swansea.
In 2009, a campaign by his folk fanbase sought to have him chosen as the British Poet Laureate.
Read more about this topic: Les Barker
Famous quotes containing the words developments, poet and/or campaign:
“The developments in the North were those loosely embraced in the term modernization and included urbanization, industrialization, and mechanization. While those changes went forward apace, the antebellum South changed comparatively little, clinging to its rural, agricultural, labor-intensive economy and its traditional folk culture.”
—C. Vann Woodward (b. 1908)
“Some poems are for holidays only. They are polished and sweet, but it is the sweetness of sugar, and not such as toil gives to sour bread. The breath with which the poet utters his verse must be that by which he lives.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The winter is to a woman of fashion what, of yore, a campaign was to the soldiers of the Empire.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)