LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI IS STILL WAITING: On Poets & Laureates, 1999
In Britain, the chase for the Poet Laureate’s job resembles a literary Grand National. Bookies quote odds. Possibilities range from Pam Ayers to Benjamin Zepheniah, virtually everyone except Jacques Santer. Writers write themselves out of consideration, or audition with royal subject matter to try to write themselves in. Vitriol follows verse as literary gossip columns study the form in ways that would make the Racing Post blush. Who’s lobbying whom? Whose connections are better? Who’s Irish? Is it time for the first woman laureate? Who has skeletons in the closet? Do you even have to be British?
The only thing that seems beyond the bounds of the discussion of who will be chosen by the great and the good is the verse itself. Would literary criticism be a factor in deciding who would get a chance to become this generation’s Betjeman? Given that the job’s main responsibility is to sing Royal praises, how could it be?
Private Eye reported the lobbying of the establishment favourite, Andrew Motion; twisting arms like a literary Lyndon Johnson. When the official shortlist was announced; its focus was clear. There are four candidates for poet laureate of Great Britain, two of whom (Seamus Heaney and Derek Walcott) are less British than I am, and Heaney has already announced that, like Lyndon Johnson, if…
