‘I always wanted to write poems that look like a glass of water but turn out to be a glass of gin.’ Well, in Sir Andrew Motion’s case, you better know your Gordon’s from your Tanqueray and have some quintessential quinine at hand, as this is going to be more than just a question of lemon or lime. The Mary Oglive Theatre hums in anticipation of the arrival of the former Poet Laureate, who is now five minutes late. The lips of the auditorium are coated in questions about the man who for ten years represented this country’s poetry. Many of us here are not familiar with his poetry, and those who are feel somewhat torn for finding it motion-less.
It quickly emerges however, that this could be a case of mistaken identity. The title of Poet Laureate is a weighted one, and its problematic nature is tackled by Clarissa Pabi (OUPS President) from the offset: ‘We’ve got used to the idea that in order to be either any good or a serious poet, you have to put it at the centre of your life in a way that rules out more or less everything else. Poetry is at the centre of my life, too, emotionally speaking and intellectually speaking – I just enjoy doing other things as well.’ There is somewhat of an accusing tone amongst the audience at times, but this is more directed toward the idea of Poet Laureate rather than Motion himself. The title renders its bearer responsible for the state of poetry in the country, and leaves their poetry under the utmost scrutiny.
In his Radio 4-ready, somnambulist voice, he opens by reading us poems on ‘fighting, conflict, feeling conflicted’, taking us from the trenches of WWI, placing a ‘wafer of dry mud onto their tongues’ through Iraq and into Afghanistan. The son of a veteran, never having served in a war himself, Motion’s process of dealing with this subject matter is rather revealing. Motion describes writing war poetry as the ‘cannibalizing’ of the dialogue of others, turning it into a poem. Underneath his calm and eloquent exterior lies an exciting and contentious rebel, and his lexical choices reveal this.
The circumstances of Motion’s poetry are very particular, in that they force the private to become public and the public to become private. The constant, schizophrenic tension created by this leads to moments of real, ephemeral beauty but can also be incredibly impeding and destructive. On his appointment as Laureate, Motion confesses that ‘it’s an ironical experience, as I find it very difficult to write poems’ and notes the ‘imprisoning” nature of commissioned work despite its “significant rewards’. When writing poetry, Motion notes a need for a balancing of the ‘conscious mind’ and the ‘primaeval swamp’, warning that too much of the former can result in a ‘BMW of a poem, accessible, but boring to read’ – whereas too much of the latter will create a poem which others won’t find so interesting.
Last Tuesday was a truly wonderful opportunity to really see Poetry in Motion, a creative process shared and explored, relevant no matter what kind of poetry you’re into.
