motionless

    Does America have the equivalent of our poet laureate?
    One thinks of Robert Frost & Kennedy - but perhaps
    that was an informal arrangement.

    In Britain, the title seems pretty well synonymous with poet
    loserate. Such as were any good originally, like Tennyson
    or Ted Hughes, had certainly suffered brain emporridgement
    by the time they accepted the honour. Most of them have
    been, like Motion, ambulant banality from the word go.
    Motion is your stereotypical 'man of letters' (of which
    the Yanks surely possess an embarras de richesse):
    a radio play here, a pome there, a biography of some fashionable
    subject - all of them perfectly magic-free. Philip Larkin had
    grave subsequent regrets at having allowed Motion do HIS
    life story. 'Posh voice, means well,' was the crushing verdict.

    Could anything stiffen one's sinews more effectively on
    the Baghdad road than reading Motion's vision or -
    better still - one of Pinter's vomits?

    PS Incidentally, another gifted combatant contemporary
    of Owen & Sassoon was Julian Grenfell. Trouble is, like
    surprisingly numerous others, in regarding the whole 1914-18
    experience as the greatest & most enjoyable lark of his life,
    he doesn't quite fit the acceptable pacifist template.

    Scottie B.

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Received on Fri Apr 4 03:39:38 2003