Andrew Motion has become the first poet laureate to retire his commission in 400 years. Normally it is a life long appointment in which the poet is asked to compose poems marking important events in the Monarch's and nation's experience. The payment for the position used to be a cask of wine although these days £5,000 a year is given. In the 10 years since being made laureate Andrew Motion, who is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of London, has composed just 8 poems.
Given the trouble he faced composing poems to mark royal and national events perhaps he would have preferred the cask of wine? In January he confessed to his heart stopping every time a paper said Prince William and Kate Middleton were about to announce their engagement (that's quite a lot of heart stopping) dreading the knowledge that he would have to compose a poem for the occasion of the royal wedding. In the same interview the Queen's laureate suggested that the royal aspect of the role should be played down saying, "I do think that the writing about the Royal family should be sidelined. I tried to write those poems as well as I could. I am not ashamed of them, but they are peculiarly difficult to write. Then they get sent out to news editors' desks and they don't rest until they have found someone who doesn't like them. It is bad for poetry as it gives people an opportunity to give it a kicking and turn it into a joke."
More recently he has said of the media's reactions to his poetry, "You'll just have to take my word for it: every time there's been a royal birth or wedding or death in the past 10 years, a terrible low rumble has begun in newsrooms across the country. A rumble that has led to some people ringing me up to ask whether I'm 'thinking of doing something'. The voice at the other end of the line puts the question in such a way as to make me feel that I'll be castigated as an idle, sherry-swilling republican if I don't take the top off my pen and start rhyming at once.
"News editors don't think a poem is a story in and of itself, so they then get on the phone to as many people as it takes to find someone who doesn't like the poem - then they have their story: poet laureate writes another no-good poem."
Not only did he find the media intimidating, but he also struggled to know the real personalities of the royals behind their public image. The Queen and former Prime Minister Tony Blair's seeming lack of enthusiasm for his role also proved disheartening. Said Motion, "I have to admit that no other writing that I've undertaken, of any kind, has been so difficult. The problem is partly to do with the subjects (if "subject" is quite the word for someone who is not a subject). How was I to connect with them, knowing only what newspapers tell me? How was I to steer an appropriate course between familiarity (which would seem presumptuous) and sycophancy (which would seem absurd)?
"And how was I to weigh and value them, knowing that a large part of the population doesn't want there to be a royal family, or feels indifferent to it?"
His retirement therefore is probably a wise move. Worryingly, however, he may be the last poet laureate to hold the position as the government is reportedly considering dropping the position. Thereby making Motion's uninspired tenancy an unfortunate endnote to such past British poets laureate as Geoffrey Chaucer, Ben Jonson, William Wordsworth, Lord Tennyson and Ted Hughes.
Nevertheless the parting of a poet laureate requires a service in kind. Here is my humble offering.
There was a poet named Motion
Who wanted a contract negation
Cried he, "Not for me!
Wouldn't do it for free."
God save the Queen from such devotion