Poet Laureate compared to writers of 'Mills & Boon' - Telegraph

Quote:

In a lecture entitled Poetry, Policing and Public Order, Sir Geoffrey Hill criticised the 56-year-old for her eagerness to ‘democratise’ the art form. The Scottish poet and playwright has previously sparked controversy by arguing children who used social networking sites and text messaging were “perfecting” their poetry skills. But Sir Geoffrey, who was once widely tipped to receive the Poet Laureateship himself, said she must “consider that she may be wrong”. Speaking at a lecture in Oxford, Sir Geoffrey referred to an interview Duffy had given to the Guardian in which one of her early poems about the death of an old English teacher was discussed. He said: “For the common good she is willing to have quoted by the Guardian interviewer several lines from a poem by herself that could be easily be mistaken for a first effort by one of the young people she wishes to encourage. “This is democratic English pared to its barest bean and I would not myself have the moral courage to write so. “My simultaneous incompatible response is this is not democratic English but cast-off bits of oligarchical commodity English such as is employed by writers for Mills & Boon and by celebrity critics appearing on A Good Read or the Andrew Marr show.” Duffy, who grew up in a “bookless house” and is a passionate advocate of poetry teaching in schools, became Britain's first female Poet Laureate in May 2009. She is one of the most popular authors for undergraduates studying English, but her views have at times been in stark contrast to those voiced by other educational experts. Last year she leapt to the defence of the so-called “Facebook generation” who some have blamed for killing off modern language. But Duffy claimed they represented the future and that “oddly enough, poetry is the perfect form for them.” She added that “the poem is a form of texting”. Sir Geoffrey, who was elected to the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry in 2010, said: “When the Laureate speaks of the tremendous potential for a vital new poetry to be drawn from the practice of texting she is policing her patch. “And when I beg her with all due respect to her high office to consider that she may be wrong, I am policing mine.” Sir Geoffrey replaced Ruth Padel who had been the first woman to fill the influential post after she resigned following allegations of an alleged smear campaign against fellow contender Derek Walcott. Padel, a great-great granddaughter of Charles Darwin, quit before taking up the role after it became apparent she had alerted the press to sexual harassment allegations against Walcott, resulting in him withdrawing from the race. She admitted at the time that she had been naive in passing information on to journalists although she denied ever having engaged in a smear campaign.

I think this is pretty offensive to Mills & Boon authors, who are generally unpretentious experts at manipulating cliché. In CAD's case, only the cliché remains present, and the level of pretentiousness is inversely proportionate to the level of expertise.

I remember one reviewer commenting something along the lines of "very GCSE, darling" - he absolutely nailed it. Even before she received the Curse of Motion, everything she writes, the basic message was "I am a poet, I am writing a poem about war/Christmas/my ex". Well, yeah, but so what? I've seen profounder and more genuine sentiments in advertising campaigns. You're a middle aged lesbian at the start of the 21st century, for God's sake, you must surely have experienced some sort of human emotion in your life?

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I am a beotian. I never got the attraction of poetry beyond a couple of lines such as - "Remember, remember, the Fifth of November". The rest of that poem, for example, is quite forgettable.

I quite like "The Raven" by Poe but, even there, it's really just the alliteration that gets to me, nothing sophisticated.

And I like the sentiments in "La Chevelure" or "J'ai fait un reve etrange et penetrant" but it's mostly the erotic subtext rather than the words or rhymes themselves. It just help push me towards my own erotic fantasies. Some of the scarier stuff by Maupassant (I think?) was also alright. Better suited to my tastes than the slash gore stuff that has taken over the Horror genre in movies.

But, basically, you could stop producing poetry and I wouldn't notice.

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French poetry has never really had much to say to me (though I like the rêve étrange et pénétrant ). At first I assumed that it was just because I was foreign and therefore it was bound to have less of an effect, just like foreign swearwords are inherently less shocking. On the other hand, I saw the point of haikus immediately, and I barely even speak Japanese. I think that good writing in French is harder to pin down than in English - I can write something that I think is passable (not a great work of art or anything, but you can at least read it) and be told that it's awful, clunky shite, for reasons which I don't understand and my critics can't explain to me. In English you just have to get the rhythm right, and the fact that the content is a load of old cobblers falls by the wayside.

Doing this mindless archiving I've found myself sitting here repeating "Let us rise up and part" or bits from Andrea del Sarto all day. Not sure why.

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