Bodmin Moor Poetry Festival

Our Beloved Leader

Having moved to a particularly remote corner of Britain, on the darkling, wind-tossed fringes of the wilds of Bodmin Moor, and having been informed on inquiring in Bodmin itself that there was 'no poetry' anywhere about, I was utterly amazed the other day to receive a newsletter from Helen Jagger in which a 'Bodmin Moor Poetry Festival' was mentioned.

Bodmin Moor Poetry Festival?!

This has to be a spoof, I thought. A poetry festival in the middle of nowhere? The link in the newsletter didn't work, and I became even more suspicious that someone was having me on. But then I googled it and found this very convincing website:

Bodmin Moor Poetry Festival, with Carol Ann Duffy, no less. Plus, Jackie Kay, Ann Gray, shortlisted in 2010 for the National Poetry Competition, and various others.

So it seems wherever I go - however remote, desolate or unlikely a spot for versifying - I cannot shake poetry off, damn the stuff. There's an open mic night too. Should I go, do you think?

Motion Sickness?

He hasn't been the most popular of Laureates, nor the most scintillating. He has been, at times, both too much and too little in the public eye. Some people I've met have had nothing but good things to say about the man and his work. Indeed, I've met the man myself - but only for thirty seconds, before he dashed off, wine glass still in hand, to another gathering of poets somewhere across London. He seemed rather unengaged in the poetry event I was attending, and who can blame him? Once you've been to one, you've been to them all.

The big question is, how many poets will state in later years to have been 'inspired' by Andrew Motion's term as Laureate?

Well, stranger things have happened at sea.

* POETRY SOCIETY EVENT *

Monday 28th April 2009, 7.45pm.

The Poetry Society marks the end of Andrew Motion's decade as Poet Laureate. On this historic occasion, Andrew will also be reading from his new collection The Cinder Path.

VENUE: Purcell Room, 7.45pm, Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre. £9 for Poetry Society Members, £10 for others. Tickets from www.southbankcentre.co.uk or 0871 663 2500.