On Wed, 18 Feb 1998, Alan Halsey wrote:
> > his (and others) professorial greed
>
> I'd meant to stay out of this exchange but as one Old World Ecosocialist
> to another I'm annoyed by this phrase. Andrew Motion's being a professor
> has nothing to do with the issue, if there is one. 'Greed' is a vice we
> O.W.E.s are bound to disapprove of but does a reading fee of 200 quid
> really qualify? There's too much real & quite nasty greed about: let's
> not waste a strong word.
>
- ah, OK, Alan, intemperate remark withdrawn, although I'd meant to cite
the 200 quid as an instance of a wider habit, to which the lifestyle is
not innapropriate, rather than as a case on its own.
> The underlying issue, I'd say, is that poets generally set out to write
> words on pages but it's come about that they're mostly PAID to stand up
> and 'perform'.
- well, there you go again, setting me off: Motion seems to get paid
handsomely for *everything*: writing, reading, talking about it, just
being such a fabulous person! Do I resent this? Yes, and so do you, but
we mightn't so much if the range of writing thus adulated and rewarded
was broader...
RC
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