Poetry Live for Haiti

Poetry Live for Haiti, Westminster Central Hall, January 30, 2010

Poetry did its bit for a good cause as Carol Ann Duffy's imagination and position as the tribe's poet-in-chief brought out the great and good and some old troopers to raise a few bob to send to the stricken and needy.

The major surprise guest appearance was Gordon Brown and his wife, Sarah. Mr. Brown made some fairly predictably laudible comments before resorting to default mode and made a political speech, for all the world as if he were at conference or was an embattled Prime Minister. His big announcement was that his government have bought up all the corrugated iron in this country and it is being sent to Haiti by ship. This is a noble and great gesture but not necessarily a vote winner among those of the electorate who make things out of corrugated iron. But he was generously received and he stayed to hear a fine Dannie Abse reading before being ushered off by Ms. Duffy. He has a country to run and needs to keep up with the Raith Rovers score.

At such an event there is bound to be some heartfelt expressions of humanity and some political points made but humanity and politics alone do not great poetry make. Some of these broadsides or specially and hastily written poems looked a bit de trop or too colossally obvious to need saying. At a performance like this, in a large auditorium, it is the 'performers' that become the highlights however fine some of the poets usually are on the page or in more intimate venues. Thus folk recorder-player John Sampson, Carribean old-timer John Agard and Daljit Nagra provided the most memorable performances while I won't be as impolite here as to mention those highly respected names whose poems were not really worthy of being put before such an audience.

For me, on a day useful to see and hear a number of poets one wouldn't have gone as far to see if advertised separately, Maura Dooley and Lachlan MacKinnon were revealed as candidates for further investigation. Owen Sheers is perhaps the one poet that parents would be pleased to have a daughter bring home and introduce to them, as he is very presentable indeed and a very competent poet in the making. Robert Minhinnick came as a big surprise, like a brooding bad boy who looks like he means business. Others with credentials included Gillian Clarke, National Poet of Wales; Christopher Reid, recent winner of the Costa prize and Roger McGough, whose Chinese-syled excursions supported by Andy Roberts on strummed instrument, followed by Brian Patten, reminded us that the 60's are still in living memory.

I would mention Jo Shapcott, Andrew Motion, Glyn Maxwell, Imtiaz Dharkar, Moniza Alvi, Robin Robertson, Collette Bryce, Elaine Feinstein, Ian Duhig and Grace Nichols, too, but fear this website doesn't carry long pieces very well and I would worry that I'd forgotten someone. All of them appeared for gratis, the hall and administration were given as acts of charity and the communal singing of the Scottish bard's Auld Lang Syne, following the laureate's atmospheric performance accompanied by the charismatic John Sampson, was a moving moment.

To think that all the usual self-promotion of the poetry circuit, the waffle and self-serving of reviews, the internecine 'poetry wars' and the essay writing in pursuit of daft degrees in universities could provide such a great coming together was quite humbling to see. A feelgood factor predicated on unthinkable disaster a long way away, no doubt, but we paid our money, turned up and took some memories away and so it is very hard to pick holes in it even if one wanted to.

Hats off and thanks to Carol Ann Duffy for being the prime mover in such an event, poetry's Live Aid, on a day when poetry for once had reason to feel good about itself. The benefit event will have been of benefit to many, both here and hopefully further across the world.