Can't believe I'm having to say this.
It's not that Andrew Motion's appointment is bad (utterly predictable from
the beginning, said as much to someone influential on the choice, who was
flirting with other populist names of a familiar kind).
I am so concerned about the conservativism of British class structures that I
turn from the whole question of the laureateship as I would a bad smell. I'm
still capable of being shocked that modern British poets should even think of
vying for this tarnished honour or that, except for cris's interesting
remarks, we should think it worth much discussion. It amazed me how easily
the newspapers corrupted professional poets into toadying around for over a
year.
The idea of a shadow laureateship continues the harm in another guise. It's
all a ridiculous media notion these days: let's have none of this personality
cult stuff -- bad enough in Petrarch's day when at least the status of poetry
was more clearly at stake. This is not the peak job in poetry: it's the top
of a dunghill. Cock-a-doodle doo.
Doug
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