'Poems are the original text messages,' says Laureate

Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy wants to bring literature to new audiences, and she argues that children who use test messaging and social networks were honing their poetry skills. “Poems are the original text messages in that they use language in a very concise way and I think they will become more relevant in this century than …

[Graham Bartlett]

Pretty good boozers back then

126 gallons = 1008 pints. That makes 2.76 pints of sherry a day, which is near as dammit 4 bottles (allowing for the occasional spillage). Even allowing for having your mates round on a regular basis, and having servants quaffing the odd cupful here and there, that's still a hell of a lot of sherry to get through.

[TeeCee]

Clever man, Charles II.

Always wondered what the point was, now I understand.

Pick most annoyingly pretentious poetic plonker. Give 'em a sinecure and enough free plonk to ensure that they're never sober enough to annoy the world with their witterings again.

Sheer genius. Just think how much more sense this would have made if the current incumbent were too thoroughly ratarsed to remember what a poem was, let alone a text message.

[AlexPresland]

Entertainment

I'm glad that this story was filed under entertainment... what a joke!

[Graham Bartlett]

Units error

Whoops, confused pints with litres when converting to bottles. 2 bottles of sherry a day, not 4. Still a fair bit of sherry though

[Cthonus]

Test Messaging.. Test Messaging...

Just testing.

[Anonymous Coward]

"These days Poet Laureates receive a barrel of sherry"

Hmmm think she may have had a good go at her barrel before this pronouncement

[boatman]

shirley people are reading more

"We are reading less now than we did and a lot of young people spend a lot of time in front of a computer on Facebook or tweeting"

if people did not read when using a computer the WWW would be as much use as a handbrake on a canoe!

[My Alter Ego]

Exactly

She probably means that young people are reading a lot less of the self important dross* that her ilk churn out.

* I'd have a lot more empathy with poets and their creations if the bloody stuff wasn't forced down my throat whilst at school. The final straw was when my teacher response to my question "is all of Emily Dickinson's work this morbid" was "her work isn't morbid". The question was prompted by her "informing" us of the imagery in "Because I could not stop for Death"

[schnide]

I would imagine..

..she means reading creative and expressive works less, rather than including:

"Carol Ann has gone to the shops!!!"

"Carol Ann likes El Reg"

"Carol Ann is drinking Sherry"

"OMG LOVE LOVE LOVE the new A A Gill book is well gud!"

..and other endless Facebook status updates. In which case she might well have a bit of a point.

Sorry - I know this isn't jumping on the bandwagon of slagging off the national female poet in residence.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this the first ever article in El Reg about poetry?

Is this the first ever article in El Reg about poetry?

I hope for more! And what about pottery and watercolour painting? I feel these have not been covered enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

iDaffodils

I rofled lonely as an iCloud

that floats on high o'er vale and hill

when all at once i lost connecti...

Do you know, I think it loses something.

[Aaron Em]

Somebody who understands UK politics...

...want to comment on whether it matters that she's of Irish Catholic descent? Does it have anything to do with anything, or is it completely incidental to the fact she's a sinecured windbag?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm

"Glasgow-born Duffy teaches creative writing to students at Manchester Metropolitan University."

I know there are some Catholics, some Irish and some who are both in Glasgow and everywhere else in the UK. But I missed the bit where it stated her religion or that she is Irish.

Actually, sounds typical British: born in one place, works in another, with some silly border in between that, thankfully, we can all ignore.

Anyway, are her witterings any sillier than the average stuff in the articles and comments in "The Register?. I suspect they give a lot more entertainment (surprisingly high proportion of the world does not work in IT, thank Heavens, even reads books, magazines, listens to and reads poetry).

[Luther Blissett]

Maybe more to do with sherry than politics

It's a matter of public record that after Andrew Motion stepped down, the title was offered to someone else first, who declined it. IMO a pity, as a sense of humour in a Poet Laureate goes down with the public better than a bottle of sherry.

[Graham Bartlett]

@Aaron Em

Nah, we're all equal opportunities for windbagging these days.

[Bango Skank]

De gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum.

The Romans would have been quite at home with twitter and a 140 character limit, or shall I say, Frustra fit per plura quod fieri potest per pauciora

But then Homines quod volunt credunt

[Mark 121]

Ahem

Poets laureate.

[sebacoustic]

excellent

let me be the first to say, after all the above commentards who've nothing of value to say about poetry, that Carol Ann Duffy is really brilliant. And yes, I am an IT techie.

Go buy this for your your sons/daughters, and add more their lives than any portable games console can deliver.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/New-Collected-Poems-Children-Duffy/dp/0571219691/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1315833258&sr=8-9

And no, I don't have any business interests in CA Duffy, her publishers, or Jeff B's empire.