The one thing that seems to have been missing from this general election (apart from genuine political choice, of course) is a celebratory poem from the Poet Laureate. Where is the "Ode to the Election" by A Motion Esq?
Luckily, I sometimes have access to the mighty computer here at the Independent, so yesterday I took the opportunity to challenge it to do a bit of verse for the occasion. I fed the selected works of Andrew Motion into the machine, gave it time to digest it and then asked it to do a few lines on the General Election (on which subject, of course, it had already been stuffed full of data).
Seconds later it came out with this
I go to the polling place
And post a letter
To my next M P.
Dear Mr Candidate
(Is what I wish to say )
I hope you get elected
And all your dreams come true.
But nobody trusts me
To write to you personally
(Even the pencil provided
Is suspiciously tied down with string)
And all they will let me do
Is find your name on the list
And put a cross against it.
No wonder you never write back.
Yes, well, I thought... Then it occurred to me that while I had got the computer in poetry mode, I might ask it to try some other writer on the subject. How about John Betjeman? No sooner suggested than I got this back.
Driving through the English country,
Goodness, how the colours clash!
Blue for Tory, orange Liberal,
Labour's red and yellow mash.
Patient in the dreary hedgerow
Like a squad of scarecrows there,
Stand the posters, all unheeded,
As we drive through Staffordshire.
"Vote for Watson", "Vote for Taylor" -
Who are all these desperate men?
And if they should be elected,
When will we see them again?
The votes are in, the ballot counted,
Someone's won and makes a speech.
But along the English hedgerow,
Between the lime tree and the beech,
Still stand the posters, now in tatters,
Shredded like their promises.
Orange bombast, blue corruption,
Red and yellow emptiness.
I quite liked the sound of this, so pressed the button for a little more of the same, and out it came.
In the fields the cows are dying,
Shot because of foot and mouth.
There are riots in northern cities
And overcrowding in the south.
Still, our football team has beaten
The Greek team two to nil!
On the telly, what excitement!
In Number Ten, such thrill!
For when we win at football,
As all the experts know,
The voters flock out to the polls
To support the status quo.
That was enough of that, I thought, so in an attempt to vary the texture I asked the computer if there were any poets he was keen on himself. He gave a little cough and produced this:-
Yes, I remember Adlestrop.
A marginal, half town, half land,
Where we stopped one afternoon
To canvas voters, as we'd planned,
But no-one came and no-one went
And no-one even noticed us,
And after half an hour of silence
We got back in our battle bus.
And just when I thought it had finished, it produced this and then went silent.
‘Is there anyone there?’ said the Canvasser
Knocking at the sunlit door.
‘Only apathy,’ said the echoes,
‘Only apathy. Nothing more.’
The Independent Fri June 8 01