Every country needs a poet laureate

Modern British laureates serve 10-year terms; they are paid £5,750 and may still claim an allowance of sherry. American poets laureat are better remunerated. They serve for one year and receive $35,000, but they have to buy their own drinks.

Despite the low pay, both positions have attracted much-loved poets. There have also been a few eccentrics. A seventeenth-century poet laureate, an Irishman named Nahum Tate, spent much of his time rewriting Shakespeare's plays. He described his version of Richard II as "full of respect to his Majesty and the dignity of courts." Eschewing tragedy, Tate's version of King Lear ends happily with the king restored to the throne and Cordelia marrying Edgar. Ironically, of the thousands of lines of poetry produced by poets laureat over the centuries, Tate wrote one of the best known: "While shepherds watched their flocks by night."

The longest-serving British poet laureate was Alfred, Lord Tennyson, who held the office for 42 years during Queen Victoria's reign. A man of his time, Tennyson took the monarchy, the empire, and himself pretty seriously. In addition to rousing tributes to national heroes such as Wellington and Nelson, Tennyson composed odes commemorating royal birthdays and immortalised well-known battles ("Cannon to right of them, / Cannon to left of them").

Tennyson is one of the few people in history to become rich by writing poems. His reputation receded in the first half of the last century, but it returned on a wave of nationalism. In the 2012 James Bond movie, Skyfall, Judy Dench, playing M, quoted one of Tennyson's pre-laureate poems ("To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield").

American poets laureat are rarely asked to produce celebratory works for public occasions. Indeed, some have publicly spurned such requests, and several have written highly critical poems about political leaders. A notable exception to these turbulent poets was Robert Frost, whom John Kennedy asked to write and recite a poem at his 1960 presidential inauguration ceremony. Frost completed the work, but the octogenarian poet could not read the manuscript on the day because the glare of sunlight on fresh snow rendered him blind. He saved the day by reciting a different poem, which he knew by heart.

Why and why not?

It is odd for a country not to have a poet laureate. Countries as diverse as Canada, Ethiopia, India, New Zealand, Ireland, Germany, Serbia, Turkey, Iran, the Netherlands, Nigeria, and the United Kingdom have at least one. The USA has 100-one for the nation, 44 state poets laureat and 55 city and regional ones. In recent years, London, New York, and Los Angeles have each appointed youth poets laureat, and America also has a national youth poet laureate.

Should Australia resurrect its long-vacant position for a poet laureate just because other countries have one? Critics say no. "Official" poetry is an oxymoron-stilted, forced and politically correct. The American poet, Carl Sandburg, ridiculed the idea of writing on demand, "Commanding a person to write a poem is like commanding a pregnant woman to give birth to a red-headed child."

In practice, no one commands poets laureat to write anything, but some voluntarily take the opportunity to mark momentous events. Although no one ordered her to do so, Britain's former poet laureate, Carol Ann Duffy, has written poems for a royal wedding, the 60th anniversary of the Queen's coronation and other significant occasions.

Once they are appointed, poets laureat may write whatever they wish, but critics argue that political correctness can still subvert the role by influencing who gets the job in the first place. Because of their political views or personal notoriety, some of Britain's most celebrated poets-Milton, Pope, Byron-were never offered the position of poet laureate. The reverse is also true. To avoid being tainted by politics, much-loved poets, such as Philip Larkin, refused the job when it was offered to them.

It would be best for both poets and poetry to minimise the role played by politics in choosing a poet laureate, but nothing can sever the relationship between poetry and politics. Poetry is about life, and politics is part of living. When Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney rejected the opportunity to include his work in a British poetry anthology, he explained his reasons as follows:

Don't be surprised
If I demur, for, be advised
My passport's green.
No glass of ours was ever raised
To toast The Queen.