 Their work was a self-conscious attempt at creating an English equivalent to the Beats.Many of their poems were written in protest against the established social order and, particularly, the threat of nuclear war.Other noteworthy later 20th-century poets are Welshman R. S. Thomas, Geoffrey Hill, Charles Tomlinson Carol Ann Duffy (Poet Laureate from 2009-2019) and Simon Armitage, the current laureate.