Andrew Motion has been a poet laureate that Eyewear could deal with - in the way that Pound had commerce with Whitman.
Motion has been good - more or less - for poetry in Britain, 1999-2009. His most important work may have been his poetry about bullying, and the Iraq War (related themes), but for most people, the Poetry Archive will seem the lasting monument. I personally regret never having been asked to record for that Archive, but then again, nothing about the poetry establishment in the UK will ever surprise me - I have lived here for over 6 years, and am still treated like an arriviste every day.
Anyway, back to Motion, whose support of my work with Oxfam and those poetry CDs was instrumental. His agreement to read at the first-ever Oxfam event way back in 2004 (five years ago now) meant that Wendy Cope also came onboard, as well as Agbabi and Dark. After that event, all the other great and talented poets were more willing to appear. I think Motion is a very fine, serious poet, and a complex, deeply intelligent, and sensitive man. I also think he is somewhat old-fashioned, but in a flexible and open-eyed way; he tried to more than cope with the rapid changes of our times - and embraced new poetics, and media, more often than not.
This post is occasioned by his article in The Guardian, today, marking his coming retirement. It's refreshingly honest, though perhaps still guarded (more will come later I assume). For one thing, he suggests that Hughes' "great poet" status may be a disservice to the man and work (which is ironic, since no one has done more in these isles to establish Heaney's great poet status than Motion, with, I think similar results there).
Another thing he points out is how negatively journalists, even the top editors, approach poetry, and poems - they are not news, and to be news, they need to be mocked or undermined. I have a similar thought. Recently, after launching The Manhattan Review Young British Poets anthology in London - and the night was a resounding success - a journalist approached me, to say he had wanted to write an article for The Sunday Times about the new generation of young poets, but his editor "didn't like poetry and thought it was dead" so had killed the story.
Too many UK journalists are sour on poetry, and infect the good news with their own toxins. In this way, the lively and burgeoning poetry communities of the UK, in all their variety and passion are daily diminished.
I agree with Motion that poetry, as he writes today, is an essential aspect of being human - or can be. Religion, poetry, myth, dance, music, drawing - all such "primitive" aspects of our imaginative existence tend to be shunted aside in a world devoted to management-speak, consumption and commerce, and science on the march - which is tragic, especially now, at a time when it is becoming evident that industry and science has gifted the world with an unpayable bill, and global warming may - Heaven forbid! - destroy us.
One thing nags at me, though, about Motion's complaint that writing engaged lyric poems about the Royals was taxing (for him, nearly impossible apparently) - it seems hard to fathom. I don't understand it, myself. Obviously, Motion believes poems must be occasioned by organically-sympathetic experiences, in much the same way as Wordsworth. If he followed the more mechanistic line of Larkin, let alone someone more ludic, or artifice-interested, like VF-T, he could well have created fascinating texts about the Royal Family - unmoored from any personal connection, true, but no less poetic in their exploration of language. The connection between spontaneous inspiration and poetic achievement that Motion inscribes in this essay will, in a small way, limit how poetry is understood in Britain - or, rather, reinforce 200-year-old beliefs.
Motion has been good - more or less - for poetry in Britain, 1999-2009. His most important work may have been his poetry about bullying, and the Iraq War (related themes), but for most people, the Poetry Archive will seem the lasting monument. I personally regret never having been asked to record for that Archive, but then again, nothing about the poetry establishment in the UK will ever surprise me - I have lived here for over 6 years, and am still treated like an arriviste every day.
Anyway, back to Motion, whose support of my work with Oxfam and those poetry CDs was instrumental. His agreement to read at the first-ever Oxfam event way back in 2004 (five years ago now) meant that Wendy Cope also came onboard, as well as Agbabi and Dark. After that event, all the other great and talented poets were more willing to appear. I think Motion is a very fine, serious poet, and a complex, deeply intelligent, and sensitive man. I also think he is somewhat old-fashioned, but in a flexible and open-eyed way; he tried to more than cope with the rapid changes of our times - and embraced new poetics, and media, more often than not.
This post is occasioned by his article in The Guardian, today, marking his coming retirement. It's refreshingly honest, though perhaps still guarded (more will come later I assume). For one thing, he suggests that Hughes' "great poet" status may be a disservice to the man and work (which is ironic, since no one has done more in these isles to establish Heaney's great poet status than Motion, with, I think similar results there).
Another thing he points out is how negatively journalists, even the top editors, approach poetry, and poems - they are not news, and to be news, they need to be mocked or undermined. I have a similar thought. Recently, after launching The Manhattan Review Young British Poets anthology in London - and the night was a resounding success - a journalist approached me, to say he had wanted to write an article for The Sunday Times about the new generation of young poets, but his editor "didn't like poetry and thought it was dead" so had killed the story.
Too many UK journalists are sour on poetry, and infect the good news with their own toxins. In this way, the lively and burgeoning poetry communities of the UK, in all their variety and passion are daily diminished.
I agree with Motion that poetry, as he writes today, is an essential aspect of being human - or can be. Religion, poetry, myth, dance, music, drawing - all such "primitive" aspects of our imaginative existence tend to be shunted aside in a world devoted to management-speak, consumption and commerce, and science on the march - which is tragic, especially now, at a time when it is becoming evident that industry and science has gifted the world with an unpayable bill, and global warming may - Heaven forbid! - destroy us.
One thing nags at me, though, about Motion's complaint that writing engaged lyric poems about the Royals was taxing (for him, nearly impossible apparently) - it seems hard to fathom. I don't understand it, myself. Obviously, Motion believes poems must be occasioned by organically-sympathetic experiences, in much the same way as Wordsworth. If he followed the more mechanistic line of Larkin, let alone someone more ludic, or artifice-interested, like VF-T, he could well have created fascinating texts about the Royal Family - unmoored from any personal connection, true, but no less poetic in their exploration of language. The connection between spontaneous inspiration and poetic achievement that Motion inscribes in this essay will, in a small way, limit how poetry is understood in Britain - or, rather, reinforce 200-year-old beliefs.
Comments
"believe there's a strong argument in favour of the post remaining a royal appointment, because the association with the royal family, though bound to produce controversy in some quarters, is similarly bound to do a far larger amount of good for poetry. It recognises its existence at the centre of things. It helps to open doors, beyond which lie influence and money that can be helpful for poetry in all sorts of practical ways."
Poetry, for the good of *poetry* as an all encomposing abstract noun, the head and spokesperson for, naturally, is his good self, a man who believes, as the above quote proves, that who one knows with power and can open doors and can connect themselves with as a poet, is the way to take Poetry forward mto a larger audience who would take it all more seriously, if only the newspapers stopped treating poetry like an Aunt Sally and take the mickey at any opportunity.
He comes across as believing that if only people knew what he did and weren't so silly, we (ie him and his pals) could make it so poetry actually makes a difference.
I don't buy what he is saying. If what he says is true, how come Heaney doesn't get the mick taken out of him?
At the heart of this, is the belief that a poet laureate needs to be personally approved by the monarch, which is the protocol as it cureently stands. No one can start this job without the express permission of the queen, which makes the post one in which the poet is the personal poet of a monarch and for that they get 5000 pounds a year, which is nothing, considering that a poet (in the real sense of that word) will be capable of immortalising their subject. Then there's 15K expenses from the govt, which betrays that whoever's doing it is doing so because of a sense of duty, but this is the nub. to whom?
To a millioniare family on lottery sized state benifits, or to their country? If it is to their country, the queen doesn'tr come into it, and in this article, Motion comes across as someone blathering a litany of moans about his poor self, bleating and coming across as a whinger. He contradicts himself at every turn, talking about poetry as if he is the guardian of it, and listing the commissions he wrote - and I have read the age attack, the second in line is doing fine ditty, and perhaps it is for this reason, the quality of his verse, why he gets mocked?
Unfortunately, the oxo types get lauded at 21 as a genius when young and pretty and its all down hill from then on, as they get shown preference on the strength of where they wrote their earliest juvenelia, win the Newdigate, a job on the nod and wink and a slow descent into mediocrity, seems to be the norm for these privileged types who are just a pawn in the game to keep a monarch, on top of a pyramid, Your Majesty, not mister, do you think all this deference, protocol and what not, makes a difference, mister S?
ake the good health of poetry
Why? Given there are umpteen people already engaged with, and capable of writing about, sport or child-rearing, why should Fred Farnsbarn, whose interests lie in quite other places, bother himself trying to engage with them? I take your point that if one accepts a commission, of course one gets on with it as best one can, but I don't see why a writer shouldn't simply refuse the shilling, ignore areas of experience that don't do it for him and concentrate on what he's good at. George Herbert, after all, ignored all subjects except man's relationship with God; Austen barely mentions the politics of her day because she's far more interested in emotional relationships.
Not sure why you're shouting, but didn't loads of people leave terrible poems around the streets after Diana died? Wasn't that turning to poetry in a time of sorrow? The father of that little lad in Liverpool, Rhys something, who got shot, also wrote poems in response, and they were rather better than might be expected. I don't think people have ever turned to poetry in times of joy - who wants to share joy? - but in sorrow, yes, and they still do.
We were discussing (not arguing about, IMO) the issues raised in your post. "There are surely broader issues to explore" - very probably, but I was responding to this one, that's all.
1. It's an anachronism that harks back to a time when powerful people engaged poets to praise them.
2. No-one can decide whether the incumbent is supposed to be a poet or an evangelist / administrator on behalf of poetry. Motion generally gets praised for the latter role.
In my view it should be scrapped altogether. we don't have an equivalent post for music, painting or an other art. We don't need one for poetry.