THE POET LAUREATE

Rhyme and reason

Being Poet Laureate must be one of the most unusual jobs you can do. Part of the Royal Household, the Poet Laureate writes poems to mark moments in our national life, including Royal events such as weddings, deaths and anniversaries.

There are no set rules; the salary is small; you don't even have to write any poems. But some of the greatest writers in England have held the post, and today the job carries a lot of honour and responsibility for the poet who holds it. The word 'laureate' comes from the laurels with which famous poets were crowned in Ancient Greece.

The present Poet Laureate is Professor Andrew Motion. As well as writing poetry, Professor Motion is interested in teaching poetry to all ages.

He explains what his job involves: "The Queen and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, made it clear that I didn't have to do anything. I wanted to keep the best of the role from the past and to add some new things to it. I see it as being two parts - the writing part and the doing part."

Professor Motion has already written lots of poems since he became Poet Laureate in 1999, with poems about the wedding of The Earl and Countess of Wessex, the 100th birthday and death of The Queen Mother and The Queen's Golden Jubilee. He has not simply written about Royal events though.

"I've also tried to make those poems part of a pattern of writing about key events in public life, as with my poems about the TUC, the charity Childline, the Salvation Army and the Paddington train crash. I think the Poet Laureate has a chance to write across the whole range of the country's life."

The Queen does not have to read or approve anything which the Poet Laureate writes, leaving him or her open to their own wishes and inspiration.

The holder of the post of Poet Laureate is also an important figure in the teaching, writing and studying of poetry by all ages. As Professor Motion explains: "I've been talking to the Prime Minister about getting poets into schools for visits; I'm involved in creating a Poetry Archive on the Web; and I've campaigned for the Heritage Lottery Fund rules, with regard to poetry, to be changed to allow the preservation of contemporary British poetry manuscripts."

The Poet Laureate also often visits schools to talk about poetry and read from his work. This is a more recent feature of the job.

When the position of Poet Laureate began in 1668, the holder had quite different responsibilities. First to receive the title was playwright and poet John Dryden, who was made Poet Laureate and Historiographer Royal by King Charles II. Charles wanted Dryden to write poetry in support of the king after a difficult period during which Parliamament had abolished the monarchy.

Later Dryden became the first and only Poet Laureate to get the sack when he became a Roman Catholic and refused to vow allegiance to the Protestant King William III!

The next poets who got the job were not always very good poets, but held political views which pleased the king or queen of the time. These poets had to write odes for each new year and to mark the birthday of the monarch. It meant that a lot of the poetry they produced was not always very good.

Only a few laureates in the 18th century rose successfully to the challenge of using their role to address the nation. Writers such as the dramatist Colley Cibber (Poet Laureate from 1730 to 1757) were hard working rather than inspired.

After 1790, prime ministers began to be involved in deciding who received the post of Poet Laureate. The first Prime Minister to become involved in the appointment of the laureate was William Pitt, who offered the job to Henry James Pye, more famous as a politician than a poet. Today he is not very well known as a poet.

Since that time, the appointment has been made on the advice of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister submits names for royal approval, and the king or queen commands the Lord Chamberlain to issue a warrant of appointment.

When George IV became king in 1820, poets no longer had to write poems in praise of the king and poets had much more freedom to write about the ideas and things which inspired them.

Some of the greatest Poets Laureate lived in the nineteenth century. They included William Wordsworth, who received the title aged 73, and Alfred Lord Tennyson. One of Tennyson's most famous poems, The Charge Of The Light Brigade, was a poem he wrote as Laureate. Inspired by a Times report of 2 December, 1854, it describes the charge by the soldiers of the Light Brigade down a valley during the Crimean war.

In the 20th century, the role of Poet Laureate has gone from strength to strength. Famous Poets Laureates in that century included Sir John Betjeman, famous for writing humorous verse. More recently, Ted Hughes wrote poems about the natural and mythological worlds. Both wrote about Royal events too. Betjeman wrote about The Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, and Hughes marked the christening of Prince Henry of Wales in 1985.

After 300 years the post of Poet Laureate still has an important role. It expresses public feelings, marks important events, and underlines the importance of poetry in society. Most important of all, it gives pleasure to the people who read it!
   
THINGS TO SEE AND DO

Find out about the people who have held the position of Poet Laureate. Clue: there were 19 of them. One of them, Ted Hughes, is pictured below.

Read some poems by Poets Laureate from different centuries, and compare their subject matter, styles, and views of the monarchy. To start with you m might want to try The Charge Of The Light Brigade, one of Tennyson's most famous poems.

Why not try writing your own poem to mark an event you think is of national interest?