Does this mean things are going from Bard to verse?

Nov 28 2008 by Peter Elson, Liverpool Daily Post

I SUPPOSE it was only a matter of time before it happened. Stand by your stanzas for Poet Idol, Strictly Come Scanning, or I’m A Versifier – Get Me Into Here.

The next Poet Laureate will be chosen by the public, rather than the great and the good. Or, to be strictly accurate, the people will have an “input” into the advice given to the Queen, who still has the final say. Which is fine, provided there are guarantees that Buckingham Palace won’t rig the phone vote, while ministers cream off premium call rates.

Even the Government has noticed the effect that popular telly programmes like Pop Idol and X-Factor have in galvanising public support.

Andy Burnham, Culture Secretary and Leigh MP, stresses his ministry will not follow “exact voting processes” used by the TV shows, whereby weekly viewers’ phone votes eliminate contestants.

Mr Burnham says: “We want to canvass opinion from academics, writers and the public on what the poet laureate’s job should be. We particularly want to enthuse young people about poetry and writing.”

Which makes me wonder whom the Ministry of Poetry previously consulted. Do we have a Ministry of Poetry? Or is it now merged into the Department of Step Aerobics and the Gastric Band Enforcement Agency?

In spite of this, the usual poetic suspects are already being touted for the laureateship: Carol Ann Duffy, James Fenton, Simon Armitage, Wendy Cope and Benjamin Zephaniah.

Given that previous laureates John Betjeman and Ted Hughes were elder literary statesmen on appointment, how about choosing some of the grand old men of pop, to shake things up a bit? How about the Kinks’ Ray Davies, a fine versifier of English life, or our own dear Sir Macca?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you say. Or who could ever forget Elton John’s subtle reworking of his paean to Marilyn Monroe, Candle in the Wind, for Princess Diana’s funeral?

Sir Elt’s got a whole back catalogue to rejig to celebrate the next decade of Royal happenings and national events. There’s a precedent with David Bowie’s Ch-ch-changes (the Guard at Buckingham Palace).

This desire to involve ordinary poetry readers is caused by the automatic retirement after 10 years of the current title-holder, Andrew Motion. His contri-butions included a poetry “rap” for Prince William’s 21st birthday in 2003.

Being poet laureate carries an annual salary of £5,000, deemed as the modern equivalent of the former ancient stipend of £100 and a butt of sack. The latter is not the laureate’s uniform of a pair of slack tracky bottoms to encase a porky poet’s posterior, but Olde Englishe for a barrel of sweet wine.

Mr Poetry-In-Motion moaned that the job was an “incredibly difficult and entirely thankless” task, with no feedback from the Queen. This caused him to suffer a five-year writer’s block. Curiously, he later rephrased these complaints as finding the job “extremely enjoyable”.

But I suppose that’s what they call poetic licence.