[Duncan Gillies MacLaurin]

Thought this extract from a Roger McGough interview might interest you, Hugh:

Why, out of interest, doesn't he drive?
"It's funny. My generation of poets don't. Adrian Mitchell, Brian Patten, Adrian Henri, John Agard. Um. Ben Zephaniah, does he drive? John Hegley can't drive. I don't know. I'd rather sit on a bus or a train and think about something".

Full interview: http://books.guardian.co.uk/poetry/f...642018,00.html

Duncan

[Michael Cantor]

Shakespeare never drove, nor did Dante. Alexander Pope did not even own a car, although I remember reading that he was an enthusiatic in-line skater, and also introduced snowboarding to the neo-classicists. When Swift commented on his lack of a driving license, Pope is said to have retorted, "So?".

[Mark Granier]

It's also rumoured that Shakespeare, Dante, Pope and a few other suspects never owned a computer, though that may be apocryphal.

[Robert Meyer]

David Anthony wrote:
I think it's OK for poets to drive so long as they do it badly.
I often scribble notes for poems when driving, which ensures I drive badly, especially when using a mobile phone and eating a sandwich at the same time.

to which Wendy V responded

David, if you're not also applying mascara, you've got nothing to brag about.

While I don't have a mobile phone and don't use mascara, I think I'm doing pretty good. After the stroke I've only one hand functional (the left), but I can drive, put on a tie, drink a can of Pepsi (without a cup holder), and eat a sandwich at the same time using the red and green lights. It only becomes a bit tricky when you're also trying to use as little gas as possible; ie. coasting up to the light when it's red with inertia (I think Newton's 2nd Law of Motion) gives you less time at the red light.

Robert Meyer

[winter]

In today's Guardian

"Roger McGough likes to think he is the model for what his fellow poet, Wendy Cope, calls a Tump: a Typically Useless Male Poet. He can't drive. He is indecisive - or rather, he is accused of being indecisive and denies it ("If I decide to be indecisive, that's my decision"). He broods. He is impractical. When he sits down to write, he thinks, gloomily: "Just what the world needs, another book of poetry." With fondness he supports Cope's conclusion: "Bloody useless..."

[Michael Cantor]

That's the same link Duncan just posted.

One begins to sympathize with Wendy Cope.

[Terese Coe]

[This message has been edited by Terese Coe (edited November 15, 2005).]

[Tim Murphy]

I don't know any good American poets who don't drive. Not all of them drive well.

[Jilly T Dybka]

That's funny -- I just read an article kinda about this Why poets don't drive

[Michael Cantor]

When Duncan, then winter and Jilly
all post the same link, is it silly
(or adhominically crass)
to wonder, you know, willy nilly,
if we all have our head up our keyboard?



[This message has been edited by Michael Cantor (edited November 14, 2005).]