O woe. Spare a thought for poor old Andrew Motion, poet laureate and versemeister to the royals, who has been lamenting over what a "thankless" job it is to hold this hallowed post.
Motion was spouting forth at the Ealing Arts Festival in London last week, whingeing that the Queen "never gives me an opinion on my work for her".
Things got so bad during his 10-year tenureship, which comes to an end next year, that the muse herself abandoned him. He "dried up completely" and could only write to commission.
Motion should just be glad that Tony Blair changed the job description for poet laureate. Past encumbents were stuck with the job until death.
"Writing for the royals was a hiding to nothing," he said.
Speaking of the Queen's 60th wedding anniversary when his poem was read by Dame Judi Dench in Westminster Abbey, Motion said: "Afterwards the Queen stopped me and said thank you', but I have no idea if she really liked it."
Poor love. Imagine doing a job day in, day out, with no hint of recognition from your boss. Sounds like an issue for the HRH HR department.
And all he gets is a small cheque - reportedly about five grand - and an annual barrel of sherry ("a butt or pipe of the best canary wine yearly", as awarded to the first appointee, John Dryden, in 1668).
Motion initially said his appointment would give him a platform to promote poetry and he concedes there are aspects of the post which are valuable: "I couldn't possibly have raised the money to start the Poetry Archive unless I'd been laureate, and that now has an enormous audience and a profoundly beneficial effect on the way poetry is taught in schools."
So surely he should be happy that he achieved what he started out to do, as he put it when he was first appointed: be a "town crier, can-opener and flag-waver for poetry".
On his appointment as laureate, Motion said, rather clumsily it has to be noted: "I think that when I took on this post I said to myself, and anyone that would listen, that there is a good reason for thinking that if it was going to mean anything significant it should be interpreted in a way that allowed me to write about events in the royal calendar as and when I can, but also to write about matters of national interest."
OK, so the Prince Wills 21st birthday rap was painful, a bit like your dad dancing meets your teacher dressing trendily for the primary seven disco. (Better stand back/Here's an age attack,/But the second in line/Is dealing with it fine.) But did he really expect penning Ode To The Queen Mum's Handbag or Lament For Mags's Liver to be edifying?
It is perhaps best he puts his royal verse behind him. But he should take heart. His Gulf war poem was a timely work, an example of how a modern laureate should ply his trade. In just 30 words, Causa Belli questions US president George Bush's pretext for war, suggesting cash, greed, oil and his paw as influences. It also highlights the gulf between those in power and ordinary people who struggle to have their voices heard. Causa Belli was written in 2003, before we learned that weapons of mass destruction weren't quite as massive or destructive as we had been led to believe.
So it would be sad if his artisitic juices dried up. Give him some more sherry Of the pressures of royalty, We plebs have no notion, But surely there still is, Some poetry in Motion.
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