'A rather solemn and high-toned mediocrity'

R.S. Thomas was never Poet Laureate – would he have accepted the post if offered?  Probably not, but he did accept, among other honours, the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1964, and had  no objection to being nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996 (Seamus Heaney won). Betjeman, of course, was Poet Laureate, from 1972 to 1984, and made a fine job of it; he was probably the last laureate who really fitted the role. 
   In his essay 'Thank You, No' Joseph Epstein – with one published poem to his name – admits that 'I would like to be asked to be poet laureate of the United States so that I could refuse it, for this seems to me a job that would bring much greater glory to turn down than to take up'. He takes a dim view of the American laureateship, and an equally dim one of the British original, at least in its more recent manifestations: 'Andrew Motion, the current poet laureate [Epstein is writing in 2005], whose biography of Philip Larkin fingered the best poet of his time for being politically incorrect, is the perfect man for the job. What is wanted in a poet laureate is a rather solemn and high-toned mediocrity, someone whose work, though perfectly acceptable in its time, is unlikely to divert the attention of posterity.' (True enough generally, but not of Betjeman, who was certainly neither solemn nor high-toned.) 
  'As one runs down the list of American poets laureate,' writes Epstein, 'the only explanation for certain names appearing there is that they are either women or black or otherwise "with the show", as they say on the carnival grounds. Make the ostensibly sweet bow in the direction of political correctness, and art, like reality in the face of a social science concept, leaves the room.' Those words were true when Epstein wrote them, and even truer now, in a world in which 'political correctness' has been replaced by 'wokeness', a much more potent and pernicious force, which has been carrying all before it, driving out art and reality alike.