[Susan d.S.]

And a bunch of them (Cibber, Shadwell, Southey) spurred great parodies.
And may again.

[David Anthony]

Interesting how many of them were really good.
Also their longevity, considering how short-live poets are, as a whole.

[Jayne Osborn]

Christopher,

Now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever read any Laurence Eusden, at least, not that I recall - or Nahum Tate. The names don't instantly spring to (my) mind.

I posted the list there to help with the comp, but it strikes me that the poets laureate would be a good topic for a thread about which ones were good and which ones were crap. It's probably been done already; is there anything that hasn't?

Back to the competition... it'll be interesting to see which laureate proves to be the most popular choice. Betcha it's Betjeman.

Jayne

[Ann Drysdale]

But you must have SUNG Nahum Tate - "As pants the hart...", "While shepherds watched..." or, how about this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOAD6cvQc7Y

Though I confess I prefer Janet Baker's version...

[Christopher ONeill]

Jayne:

Nahum Tate is one of my absolute favourites: I use his story in workshops all the time.

If you look closely at the history of Pope's Dunciad, Nahum Tate slowly becomes less prominent in the text as the poem is progressively revised. There are just a few hints in Pope's letters (nothing definite of course) that Pope may have realised that Tate was just a very awful poet, and might perhaps have decided to go easy on him.

Too bad to even be in the Dunciad? How sad must that make you feel?

And nearly everything Tate wrote was absolutely execrable (how else do you become a darling of the establishment?). Tate had sixty odd years to write poems which were even worse than Thomas Shadwell's.

Only, buried in among all the rest of Nahum Tate's dreck, you find As Pants the Hart, Silent Night, and the libretto of Dido and Aeneas.

Sixty years of being the worst poet in Europe, and the only consolation is writing the most beautiful Christmas Carol in English, and the first truly great English opera.

I'd settle for that.

I think most of us would.

......

(I also have a soft spot for Shadwell - though not as a poet).

[ChrisGeorge]

Originally Posted by Jayne Osborn

Christopher,

Now that you mention it, I don't think I've ever read any Laurence Eusden, at least, not that I recall - or Nahum Tate. The names don't instantly spring to (my) mind.

They did name a station after Eusden I believe. And name an art gallery after Nahum Tate.

I take it the task is to submit a Jubilee poem by one of the Poet Laureates and not to write a poem in the manner of the particular poet? Is that correct?

Best regards

Chris

[Roger Slater]

No, Chris. This is a writing competition. You're supposed to write your own poem, not send in other people's poems.

[Roger Slater]

I fear this may be one an American can't get a handle on (or at least this American) but I gave it a whirl so I might as well post it, such as it is:


WORDSWORTH

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That stretched across the British Isles
Then kept on stretching o'er the sea
And stretched for several thousand miles.

It covered more than half the earth,
This cloud I wandered lonely as,
And now I have by dint of birth
A claim no other monarch has:

Sixty years upon the throne,
The throne my royal backside fills!
In pensive mood, when I'm alone,
I mutter, "Bugger daffodils!"

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Roger

Thanks for the word on the nature of the call for Jubilee poems at The Spectator. I enjoyed your Wordsworth poem. However, I feel it depends too much on the old heard-before joke that the throne that the monarch sits upon equates to the ceramic "throne" in the toilet. I'd hazard a guess that a number of bards will try to pull at one. Too obvious, Roger.

Best regards

Chris