The U.K.'s poet laureate is a producer of bad doggerel. No, really. Tell me what you think of this, ignoring for the moment it's "inflamatory" subject matter
CAUSA BELLI by Andrew MotionAnd I thought my poetry sucked. Tim Blair is collecting parodies of the work. Send them his way.They read good books, and quote, but never learn
a language other than the scream of rocket-burn.
Our straighter talk is drowned but ironclad:
elections, money, empire, oil and Dad.
Update: Dig it! Tim better wake up! People are all over this here thing. Here's mine:
CAUSA SMELLY
They pose and preen and spout erudite words
But little do they know we see right through these turds.
Fine talk is cheap, but no help in the breach,
Nobody cares a fig what these loons preach.
Update: the results are posted. Go read. Do not eat or drink at the same time, though, unless you have a replacement keyboard.
Posted by Andrea Harris at January 9, 2003 03:36 PMI wrote poem once about a lad from Nantucket. It wasn't much, but it was sure better than that crap.
Posted by: Chip Haynes at January 9, 2003 at 04:03 PMWow, the resemblance to the products of grade-school "intro to poetry" classes is uncanny. Except that its formulaic contrivedness is worse, and its rhetoric is somehow even more ignorant.
Posted by: David Jaroslav at January 9, 2003 at 04:38 PMJon Anderson could write better than that!
What exactly is the point of a poet-laureate anyway?
Posted by: Tim Hall at January 9, 2003 at 04:41 PMHow long does a UK Poet Laureate serve? When Motion's tenure is over, perhaps he can go to work in New Jersey. Even he would be a step up from "Amiri Baraka."
Posted by: David Jaroslav at January 9, 2003 at 05:15 PMIn the UK, the Poet is Laureate until he's D-E-D.
I guess that means, in Motion's case, when he becomes Static...
I don't know why, but I have the strangest desire to append the words "Burma Shave" to your poem, Andrea.
By the way, I sent Tim Blair a poem under the name of "Andrea Stoppage". I apologize for borrowing your first name. You can have it back now, thanks.
Posted by: Angie Schultz at January 10, 2003 at 12:05 AMHeh. Did you have as hard a time as I did attempting to match Milton Junior's non-rhythm? (I don't know why I bothered -- to prove that I could, I guess.)
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 10, 2003 at 01:02 AMYou can't write a good poem without using the word "turd" once or twice. Coleridge always kicked himself for taking all the "turds" out of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner."
Posted by: Steve H. at January 10, 2003 at 10:06 AMIf scatology it a requirement for legitimacy as a poet, Ginsberg probably has his feet licked clean and pink by the collective loony-literary-Left on a daily basis.
Posted by: David Perron at January 10, 2003 at 12:22 PMBring back Pam Ayres (quaint English light comedy poet and former MI5 agent)!
Posted by: Steven Chapman at January 10, 2003 at 09:18 PMSpeaking of feet, is there a technical name for that mutated appendage with the two extra syllables that Motion stuck at the end of the second line?
Posted by: Paul Zrimsek at January 11, 2003 at 12:32 PMYes. I believe the literary term is "a poke in the eye with a sharp stick."
Posted by: Andrea Harris at January 11, 2003 at 01:29 PM