This looks a bit like a joke story, as is not unheard of in the cheeky U.K. press (though some of the letters also look like letters their alleged authors really would write,. if only as a joke, if called upon). But there’s no overt indication the story is made up by the Guardian.
What really makes me ask is the (supposed) contribution from England’s poet laureate Andrew Motion. I can’t quite believe a poet laureate of anything, let alone England, would seriously use the phrase “dapper hall;” maybe I’m missing something, though.
I don’t mean to dwell on the poetic/aesthetic aspect of this or any other of the items (or at least, will move over to CS if I feel the need to); just wanted to know whether the contributions are genuine items from whom they purport to be from.
On the one hand, it’s not unreasonable to assume that the Guardian may have made them up for the fun of it, but then you would think there would have to be some kind of disclaimer.
The kind of big, no-nonsense thick black print disclaimer that ensures that:
a) the public is not mislead into taking it seriously
b) the people to whom to letters are attributed do not take offense/legal action
But now I’m intruiged, and I think I’ll email the Guardian and ask!
Well, I checked out several of the names, and they all seem to be who they say they are. It’d be very unwise of the Guardian to publish fake letters in the names of public figures without at least a large disclaimer.
The letters are real. There are sometimes spoof columns in the broadsheets, such as “Cherie Blair’s Diary”, but they are unmistakably tongue-in-cheek. The Grauniad would have made it crystal clear if this was a joke.
I don’t even see anything surprising in these letters. They all sound to me like the sort of thing that these people would say. Why do you even find the letters to be surprising?
Well, a few of them were a bit jokey or flippant in tone, but then they might well be if they were (as I assume) solicited rather than spontaneous. Sort of the celebrity roast phenomenon.
No, what really had me wondering was A. Motion (who was a protege of Philip Larkin, and who I’d not previously thought of as poetically deranged, though now I’ve done a bit more research (check out his birthday rap for Prince William), maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention).
Again, I really will move any further aesthetic comment to CS, but it struck me as factually implausible that the poet laureate (of England, or Abilene) would, all in the space of a mere 16 lines:
a. use the phrase “dapper hall” (I can’t get this one out of my mind, and I’ve gone back to the OED twice already);
b. attempt public rhyming of:
house/fuss;
sun/on; and
glare/cares;
c. refer to the child who lost his arms in Iraq as “[thinking] he was catching a ball.” As I remember, it was a guided missile that hit Ali’s house, so Motion either thinks that Ali is none too bright, or else that would have been one heck of a catch, and all the more reason for goalkeeper-deficient football clubs to regret his farewell to arms.
The comments in Portillo’s letter about the uselessness of the British police seem to have stirred up a political row (Daily Telegraph), so it must be genuine.
And I would say that’s almost certainly Andrew Motion, who’s a dreadful poet.
Who says poet laureates have to be good poets? Wasn’t Maya Angelou a poet laureate? I thought her poetry stank like last week’s haddock (there’s a metaphor for you.) Her much-praised poem written for Bill Clinton’s inauguration, in my honest opinion, really sucked, and featured some real howlers:
I’m sorry, but that’s just hysterically bad. “Any other groups I need to include? Let’s see… the Swiss? No, they’re mostly covered by the Catholic thing. Australians? No, not really a big Australian contingent in the US, I guess. Okay… bring in the talkin’ tree! Nobody’s ever used a wisdom-of-the-trees metaphor before! Does anyone have an English-Entish dictionary?” Note “the African and Native American,” possibly the worst construction ever written by an actual poet.
So I’m not too surprised the UK’s poet laureate sucks too. His other stuff isn’t THAT bad, though - nothing brilliant that I’ve seen, but not childish, like that poem would suggest. Maybe he was dumbing it down for George.
I long for the day when poets will maybe shy away from one long, droning free-form poem after another and tackle some trickier stuff, like sonnets. Shakespeare still kicks a lot of ass, poetry-wise. I think there should be a law that to be called a poet, you should have a quota of poems in specific forms like that you should have to write, and they have to be good.
In the UK, Poet Laureate is a royally-appointed title, and there’s only ever one (it’s an honour only - they get paid in malmsy or sack or mead or some sort of ancient wine). Andrew Motion should never have been appointed Poet Laureate. He really really really sucks. In my opinion.
Nope. Maya Angelou is a poet laureate of something, but she has never been the US Poet Laureate. I think she calls herself the poet laureate of Harlem or something pretentious like that.
It’s a little different in the US. The US Poet Laureate is appointed every year by the Librarian of Congress. They get a $35,000 stipend provided by a trust set up by Archer Huntington (so no tax dollars are used) and are basically the poetry advisor to the Librarian of Congress. They do stuff like like help set up the poetry lectures and readings that go on in the Library of Congress - inviting various poets that they think are pretty good. The Poet Laureate is also supposed to work on ways to help promote poetry in general. One of the past PL’s started up a program of poetry workshops, another one started a poetry campaign that was supposed to encourage elementary school kids to write poetry, several have organized writers conferences and I think Rita Dove back in the early '90s tried some stuff with jazz and poetry.
I went to Refusal’s link for the Daily Telegraph and was assaulted by the worst web advertisement ever, a huge hamburger on the screen moving up and down with the some large print mentioning McDonald’s new Big and Tasty. While this has zero to do with Pres. Bush or any letters to him, I figured the English were more sensible so now I am forced to go reconsider everything I thought I knew about Western Civilization.
One last comment on this since one of the letters really threw me for a loop:
[quote]
Dear George,
I would just like to say how much I hate you. You have done nothing positive in your whole time as president. You are the reason for the poverty in the Middle East. You have no idea what you are doing. You’re killing loads of people, and that is not excluding your own nation too. There are still lots of very poor people in America, and they are getting poorer.
You keep making excuses about Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, but all you were in Iraq for was the oil. Saddam had been there for 30 years, so why is it only now you decided to act? You keep talking about September 11 when all you do is bomb other countries and give Israel lots of money. It is a very bad idea that you have come over here.
I don’t want to grow up in a country which is so influenced by you and your policies.
Mickey (12)
[quote]
"You are the reason for the poverty in the Middle East."
What next, he started AIDS, caused Three Mile Island and nailed Jesus to the cross?
Well, Jesus was stirring up dissent against the legitimate government of Israel, and leading a cell of politically-motivated religious dissidents as well. The UN didn’t take any action to protect the Israelis, so we had to!
As for Maya Angelou, “scans nicely” is a compliment I use when I can’t say “that is completely devoid of substance or merit.” She sucks, plain and simple. Listen to the tree? How many have you killed, Maya, and to what purpose?
My name is the Lorax
I speak for the trees
won’t somebody stop
Maya Angelou, please?
And isn’t the plural “poets laureate”, as with “sergeants major” and “draconian attorneys general”?
And how about those Red Sox? They sure are better than the Yank…
Hey! What’s this deep hole I’m standing in? It’s kinda warm, and smells sweet, but spicy. It’s almost like some kind of… pit.
