Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Duffy Earns Her Butt
When Carol Ann Duffy was named Poet Laureate, it seemed an odd appointment, not least because she is a pretty good (sometimes very good indeed) poet, and not exactly a comfortable establishment figure. I was expecting a sullen silence, punctuated occasionally by an outburst of barbed and disobliging verse - but no, she has proved amazingly prolific and responsive. Her latest is this prompt response to the latest crisis in the nation's life. Setting a current national hero in the Homeric tradition - this (if faintly absurd) seems to me just the kind of thing a Poet Laureate ought to be doing. Truly she is earning her butt of Malmsey (if that's the going rate for the job).
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Good old Carol Ann - yes faintly absurd indeed, but then she has the ability to find life faintly absurd from time to time, and I think that makes her an ideal Poet Laureate (do a good job, but don't take our funny human ways too seriously!) She's a true professional, and retains her integrity - it would seem - so far.
ReplyDeleteHmm, it will take a lot for me to forgive her this shocker but writing about Beckham is a leap forward.
ReplyDeleteIf during her laureateship she can come up with one memorable line or phrase she'll have done pretty well.
I'm with Brit on this one. However, this poem is far from her worst and I find myself not disliking it.
ReplyDeleteSomeone, it might have been Leigh Hunt, made the very just observation that poet laureate is the one office on earth that can never be filled appropriately: appoint a really good poet and he or she is demeaned by the post; appoint some doggerelizing booby and he or she disgraces it.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, I only learned the other week that a "butt" of sack is around 110 gallons of the stuff.
Jonathan - Betjeman was perfect for it, being interested in the stuff of the nation, not too good and just doggerelising enough.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I read and liked The World's Wife before reading the poem Brit has linked. Ugh.
ReplyDelete