Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, who only last week was basking in the glow of her latest collection The Bees winning the Costa poetry prize, has now come under fire from some quarters for her poem written in the aftermath of the conviction of two men for the 1993 racist murder of Stephen Lawrence. 

Published in the Guardian last Saturday, the 14-line poem, called simply Stephen Lawrence, attracted criticism from blogger Guy Stagg on the Daily Telegraph website. Under a headline, Is This The Best She can Do?, he wrote of the poem: “It’s bitty, unsatisfying, and a little nonsensical.” On the London Review of Books website, Ian Patterson called it “embarrassingly bad”.  Others of course disagreed. The criticism raises the issue of what poet laureates should write about. Should they stick to commenting on royal occasions – or, like Duffy, find it impossible to ignore moments of real national importance, such as the Stephen Lawrence trial?   

Another poem about Stephen Lawrence that has arguably had more impact than that of Duffy’s is Dean Atta’s I am Nobody’s Nigger, which began as an update on Facebook and post on Twitter. In five days his poem had over 15,000 hits and gave him 1,000 extra followers on Twitter. He said in a Guardian interview: "Watching Panorama, where they reconstructed his murder, and hearing that the N-word was the last thing they said when they stabbed him really struck a chord with me."

Atta, 27, who studied English and philosophy at Sussex University, and was president of the African Caribbean Society, revealed that his method of composition was probably different to that of Duffy’s, too. "I recorded it on to my iPhone, and it was straight online. I tweeted it and it just went viral." The poem begins: "Rappers, when you use the word 'nigger' remember that's one of the last words Stephen Lawrence heard, so don't tell me it's a reclaimed word."