JiscMail Logo
Email discussion lists for the UK Education and Research communities

Help for POETRYETC Archives


POETRYETC Archives

POETRYETC Archives


POETRYETC@JISCMAIL.AC.UK


View:

Message:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Topic:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

By Author:

[

First

|

Previous

|

Next

|

Last

]

Font:

Proportional Font

LISTSERV Archives

LISTSERV Archives

POETRYETC Home

POETRYETC Home

POETRYETC  2005

POETRYETC 2005

Options

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Subscribe or Unsubscribe

Log In

Log In

Get Password

Get Password

Subject:

The perils of laureates...

From:

Alison Croggon <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Poetryetc provides a venue for a dialogue relating to poetry and poetics <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Sat, 9 Apr 2005 17:55:39 +1000

Content-Type:

text/plain

Parts/Attachments:

Parts/Attachments

text/plain (117 lines)

NYT story on Royal laureates at
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/07/books/07laureate.html?hp&ex=1112932800&en=
3a1856dda79f56a8&ei=5094&partner=homepage

LONDON, April 6 - How do you solve a problem like "Camilla"?

If you are Andrew Motion, Britain's poet laureate and the man charged with
producing a cheerful commemorative poem about Prince Charles's impending
marriage to Camilla Parker Bowles, none of the obvious rhymes - vanilla,
flotilla, Godzilla - seem appropriate, somehow.

Nor would you want to dwell on the pre-wedding mishaps that have filled
Britons with such unbecoming Schadenfreude in recent days: the panicked
confusion over the time and place of the ceremony; the fact that the groom's
parents will not attend; the lingering specter of Charles's dead ex-wife,
looming like Banquo at the feast.

But although this royal occasion might seem trickier than most to
immortalize, all present their own particular problems, said Robert Potts,
an editor at The Times Literary Supplement who until recently was editor of
Poetry Review magazine.

"Every single time, it's an impossible job," Mr. Potts said of poems
celebrating royal weddings. "One's not entirely clear why anyone bothers to
do it."

Mr. Motion declined to be interviewed on how his poem was coming along but
said that interested parties could read it on Saturday, the day of the
wedding. Since his appointment, in 1999, he has come up with royal-themed
poems, praising Queen Elizabeth for "fifty years of steadiness through
change," saying of Princess Margaret that she died knowing that "love and
duty speak two languages," and writing, on the occasion of Prince William's
21st birthday, that:

It's a threshold, a gateway
A landmark birthday;
It's a turning of the page,
A coming of age.

In the past, royal-themed poems have rarely been considered a laureate's
best work.

The great poet Ted Hughes, Mr. Motion's predecessor, once wrote a poem
celebrating Prince Andrew's wedding to Sarah Ferguson in 1986 that included
the lines: "A helicopter snatched you up/ The pilot, it was me." (The
marriage ended in divorce.) In a poem observing the 40th anniversary of the
Queen's coronation, he praised her corgis without apparent irony.

Although Mr. Motion wrote a poem denouncing the Iraq war, he has pledged
never to "mock, deride or criticize" the royal family in his poetry. He says
that he sees himself "as a town crier, can-opener and flag-waver to poetry,"
and he has produced poems on a range of nonroyal topics, including Nelson
Mandela; bullying; the Paddington rail disaster; the national census; the
English rugby team; and the annual meeting of a national workers' union.

But the royal poems invariably attract the most attention, and the most
sniping. Poets as a group tend to be thin-skinned, jealous and suspicious,
and the elevation of one to such a public post invariably opens the door to
everyone else's rude comments.

It was even worse in the old days. Poets laureate have produced some
shockingly poor work in their time, as in the case of the Edwardian laureate
Alfred Austin, who, when the Prince of Wales fell ill, is said to have
produced the following: "Across the wires the electric message came/ 'He is
no better, he is much the same.' "

But even Austin was not ridiculed as relentlessly as Colley Cibber, who
flattered and social-climbed his way into the laureateship in 1730.
Alexander Pope immortalized him in a later version of his epic poem "The
Dunciad," making him the King of Dunces, and an anonymous contemporary
wrote, meanly:

In merry old England it once was a rule,
The King had his Poet, and also his Fool:
But now we're so frugal, I'd have you to know it,
That Cibber can serve both for Fool and for Poet.

Mr. Motion has not been roughed up quite so much, but whatever he writes is
inevitably critiqued by anyone who feels like it. Three years ago, The
Guardian newspaper printed an article titled "Is Motion Any Good?", allowing
various people to opine that he was not. Although the poet Alan Jenkins
handsomely said that Mr. Motion was "trying to do something very
interesting," the critic A. N. Wilson begged to differ.

"He used to be an average poet," Mr. Wilson said, "and now he's turning out
twaddle."

Appraising Mr. Motion in The Daily Telegraph, the poet Craig Raine allowed
that he had written some "perfectly creditable" laureate poems. But then Mr.
Raine branded a Motion poem not only derivative of a work by Wilfred Owen,
but also reflecting an "inadvertent, unconscious lift" from one of his, Mr.
Raine's, own poems.

Mr. Raine said, though, that he sympathized with the laureate's enforced
inoffensiveness. "Good taste is the enemy of literature," he wrote,
imagining what might happen if Mr. Motion could let reality, rather than
discretion, be his guiding force.

Referring to two of the many royal scandals that seem to cry out for comment
by an anti-laureate, Mr. Raine wrote: "It isn't that I'd like laureate poems
entitled, 'On the Occasion of James Hewitt Visiting Princess Diana for the
Purpose of Consolation,' or 'Imagine Being a Tampax: Intimate Thoughts on
the Mobile Phone.'

"Well, maybe I would."






Alison Croggon

Blog: http://theatrenotes.blogspot.com
Editor, Masthead:  http://masthead.net.au
Home page: http://alisoncroggon.com

Top of Message | Previous Page | Permalink

JiscMail Tools


RSS Feeds and Sharing


Advanced Options


Archives

May 2024
April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
2001
2000


JiscMail is a Jisc service.

View our service policies at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/ and Jisc's privacy policy at https://www.jisc.ac.uk/website/privacy-notice

For help and support help@jisc.ac.uk

Secured by F-Secure Anti-Virus CataList Email List Search Powered by the LISTSERV Email List Manager