H'm, Lemsip...
I guess if I were to write a critical review of his poetry I may feel
pleased to have said that he writes in "that sort of slightly introverted
self-pitying mood that a mild illness can give." but I don't think I would
be more than damning him with faint praise...
I wonder what other drink/drugs/substances he had to take, though, before he
admitted this?
Bob
>From: grasshopper <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Pennine Poetry Works <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Poetry in Motion
>Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2002 22:21:44 +0100
>
> from the BBC:
>
>Poet Laureate Andrew Motion has admitted to using chemical stimulation to
>help him write poetry - a daily cup of cold remedy Lemsip, according to
>reports.
>The poet told the Daily Telegraph he had no idea how it helped - although
>it
>gave him the sensation of having "a mild illness".
>"It works. I've been doing it for years and it's become habitual," he said.
>"Years and years ago, I read in a biography of AE Housman that he wrote
>most
>of A Shropshire Lad while he had a cold.
>"And I thought, yes, I know about that - that sort of slightly introverted
>self-pitying mood that a mild illness can give."
>"It is absolutely conducive to poems," he added.
>Motion said that Lemsip, which contains a decongestant and well as traces
>of
>caffeine and paracetamol, allowed him to "fool myself into feeling a bit
>ill".
>The poet, who was born in London and educated at Oxford University,
>published his first collection of poetry in 1977.
>
>He is an admirer of Philip Larkin, whom he has called "possibly the finest
>expository lyrical poet".
>Motion won a Whitbread Award for his biography of the poet.
>In 1995, he succeeded Malcolm Bradbury as professor of creative writing at
>the University of East Anglia and in 1998 he was appointed Poet Laureate.
>A number of 19th-Century poets, including Thomas de Quincey, Samuel Taylor
>Coleridge and Edgar Allen Poe, were known to use stronger substances to
>encourage their creativity.
>"It's my Lemsip-inspired trance, and I can only say thank heavens it's not
>laudanum or absinthe," said Motion.
>A spokesman for Lemsip manufacturer Reckitt Benckiser reassured users: "It
>is fair to say that it doesn't cause poetry in most people."
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