Motion welcomes no more royal verse

One of the more onerous and frankly embarrassing tasks that befalls the Poet Laureate is having to write verse celebrating the various doings, comings and goings of the British Royal family. However, according to the Sunday Telegraph, it looks like this tradition is to come to an end when the present incumbent, Andrew Motion (pictured), stands down in May.

A spokesman for Andy Burnham, the Culture Secretary who will announce Motion's replacement in March – Carol Ann Duffy and Simon Armitage are frontrunners - said: "There is no job description for the post and no fixed purpose, if you like. We want the laureate to be a figure of public importance and someone who will promote poetry. It is perfectly reasonable to say that the stereotypical view of it as someone who produces poems for Royal births, weddings etc is not what we envisage the role to be."

Sadly, it has all come too late for Motion, who held the job as is now the custom for 10 years and recently complained that the Queen never condescended to thank him for his rhymes. "I tried to write those poems as well as I could. I am not ashamed of them, but they are peculiarly difficult to write."

He maybe referring to the verses he supplied to mark Prince William's 21st birthday, one of which went:

Better stand back
Here's an age attack,
But the second in line
Is dealing with it fine.

Motion is delighted his term of office is coming to an end. "[Soon] my heart won't stop every time the Evening Standard says William and Kate are getting married," he says. "They better not get engaged in the next two months."