John Sutherland, professor emeritus of modern English literature at University College London, called it an angry poem. "The motive force here is disgust. Disgust at the great machine and its dishonest mechanics who run our society. Duffy Furiosa. The poem's technique is that of someone almost speechless with rage - a great tumbling catalogue. No time for structure."

He said he rather regretted the fact that Duffy had given the poem a title "because it's not until close to the end that this great heap-of-crap which has so got Duffy's goat is identified."

Sutherland also wondered whether Duffy was shifting her attack from politics to politician - as in Gordon Brown - by using the "the talismanic phrase" of "moral compass".

Judith Palmer, director of the Poetry Society, called it a bold poem. "I think that what she has managed to do is capture in poetry the sense of disbelief, the strangled despair, which leaves most of us just shaking our heads, open-mouthed and inarticulate." She said Duffy had brilliantly put into words that "bloody hell" feeling most people felt every time they listened to the latest detail of the expenses scandal.

Duffy is thought to have edged ahead of Simon Armitage to succeed Andrew Motion, whose 10-year tenure comes to an end tomorrow. For her fans - and there are a lot - it will be justice at last. Ten years ago it was between Duffy and Motion and one Downing Street official intimated that it was the poet's sexuality that was the stumbling block. "Blair is worried about having a homosexual [sic] as poet laureate because of how it might play in middle England," the official told the Sunday Times. The latest offer is thought to have been made last week after approval from Buckingham Palace and Downing Street.

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If she accepts, Duffy's appointment is likely to be welcomed by poets and the public. She is a rare thing in poetry: loved by academics and general readers alike. Her poetry is clever, often described as razor sharp, and she consistently pushes the limits of form and language. But it is also accessible and easy to read and Duffy has become a regular feature on school syllabuses.

For the princely sum of $4,000, the poet appointed to the newly created post will be expected to "elevate poetry in the consciousness" of the area's residents, who include the hundreds of thousands of employees of some of the world's major high-tech companies.

The lucky incumbent will also be asked to "create, over time, a body of work that commemorates the rich and varied culture" of the county. A local wag raised a note of cynicism at the prospect, proposing the lines: "I think that I shall never see / A county lovely as a tree. / Indeed with all these shopping malls / trees are barely seen at all."

Unfortunately for the likes of Andrew Motion, who steps down from his position as the UK's poet laureate later this year, the role is only open to poets who have lived in sunny Santa Clara county for five years. For all those poets who do inhabit the area, applications, which are now open, must be received by 17 February, with the term of office to last from April 2009 to April 2011.

Robert Hass, former US poet laureate, welcomed the news. "Having poets around who are thinking about language, especially in places that have to do with communication and also with invention is a terrific idea," he told the Associated Press. "Poets are always trying to invent in all forms of language."

Known for her sly, compact poems that revel in wordplay and internal rhymes, Ms. Ryan has won a carriage full of poetry prizes for her funny and philosophical work, including awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 2004, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, worth $100,000. Still, she has remained something of an outsider.

"I so didn't want to be a poet," Ms. Ryan, 62, said in a phone interview from her home in Fairfax, Calif. "I came from sort of a self-contained people who didn’t believe in public exposure, and public investigation of the heart was rather repugnant to me." But in the end "I couldn't resist," she said. "It was in a strange way taking over my mind. My mind was on its own finding things and rhyming things. I was getting diseased."

Dana Gioia, a poet and the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, was an early supporter of Ms. Ryan's work, describing her as the "thoughtful, bemused, affectionate, deeply skeptical outsider." "She would certainly be part of the world if she could manage it," he said. "She has certain reservations. That is what makes her like Dickinson in some ways."

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."