The poet Imtiaz Dharker is to become chancellor of Newcastle University. Dharker is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was awarded the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry in 2014.

The poet, artist and documentary film-maker, who was born in Lahore and raised in Glasgow, said: “In inviting me to be chancellor, Newcastle University has reconfirmed that it places poetry at the heart of its great, pulsing activity, and this delights me more than I can say. It suggests a larger view of what education is for and about, especially in these strident times. This university has always combined the highest aspiration with the determined pursuit of social justice and opportunity for all, and a wider engagement with the community.

“I am proud to take on this role, especially when I think that this was the only university in the United Kingdom to give Dr Martin Luther King an honorary degree during his lifetime, and that he came and stood in this place to receive it.”

“I was here last summer, and thought it would be a great place to be a student again. In a way I will be, because coming to it now I hope to learn from and be inspired by the people I meet, by the vitality of its academic staff and students. I thank them for their faith in me, and look forward with great pleasure to being chancellor of this exceptional university."

Imtiaz Dharker has published six books with north-east publisher Bloodaxe: Postcards from god  (1997), I Speak for the Devil (2001), The terrorist at my table (2006), Leaving Fingerprints (2009), Over the Moon (2014) and Luck Is the Hook (2018). All her poetry collections are illustrated with her drawings. Earlier this year she turned down suggestions that she might become the next poet laureate, saying that she had to “weigh the privacy I need to write poems against the demands of a public role. The poems won.”

Other well-known poets connected to Newcastle University include Sinéad Morrissey, director of the university’s Centre for the Literary Arts, which runs an annual poetry festival and a poetry competition. The university also offers an MA in writing poetry.

PHOTOGRAPH: BRITISH COUNCIL