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Cope, one of the country's most widely read and best-loved poets, is seen as a frontrunner for the position after the expected retirement of Andrew Motion next year. If appointed, Cope would be the first woman laureate. But that now seems unlikely. Answering a question at this year's Guardian Hay festival, Cope told her audience that the laureateship is something we could do without.

"I think it is an archaic post. It has ridiculous expectations attached to it, which do not come from the palace or from Whitehall, but from the public and the media," she said. She suggested that she would be unlikely to accept an invitation to become the next laureate.

"I have never wanted to be poet laureate," she explained. "I have nothing against the royal family but I wouldn't want to be under pressure to write poems about them. I have some sympathy with Kipling's view that a poet has no business becoming an employee of the state. And, anyway, I prefer a quiet life."