Andrew Motion visits Wellington

Last Wednesday we were privileged to have the the Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, visit Wellington to read some of his work and talk to us about being a poet.  He started with an extract from his autobiography 'In the Blood' and perhaps unsurprisingly, given his audience and the fact that for many years his 'day job' was teaching, he chose to read a piece about the favourite English teacher who inspired him to begin writing.  The reading, about the particular English lesson when he first began to 'get' poetry, provoked some wry smiles from an audience only too familiar with the perils of being seen as a 'teacher's pet', and the first laugh of the evening was raised by the account of the class smart aleck's question to 'Sir' about 'that word throbbing'.  

He went on to read some as yet unpublished poems from his latest collection, the majority of which were in celebration of the life of his recently deceased father.   The poem 'Wish List' was a profoundly moving account of a whole life, captured in a list of everyday objects and actions, which caught the audience by surprise with 'your last word... unheard'.  He read some more, and talked some more, about his flat in London and about coming to terms with the unenviable inevitabilities of his position: 'If I write a poem for a royal occasion and it's as good as Hamlet, it would still be slated'.  He was very easy to listen to and the hour sped by.  His final poem was a comic picture of two little boys, anxious to play cricket,  watching their 'dad' battling with an ancient and temperamental lawn mower.  This again made the audience laugh out loud.

We weren't surprised the Poet Laureate was clever with words; after all, that's what you might expect from someone who has been officially recognised as Britain's most prestigious poet  - what was surprising was his humanity, his niceness, and his ability to make his audience laugh.    

Denise Cook