{"id":239,"date":"2015-07-04T10:53:41","date_gmt":"2015-07-04T10:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/?p=239"},"modified":"2016-03-16T10:34:34","modified_gmt":"2016-03-16T10:34:34","slug":"celebrity-gardeners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/?p=239","title":{"rendered":"Celebrity Gardeners"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Visiting a Royal Horticultural Show\u00a0\u00a0 –\u00a0 renamed \u201cThe Spring Festival\u201d – \u00a0at Malvern recently, I was struck by how much even the down-to-earth dirt-under-your-fingernails world of gardening has been infected by the cult of\u00a0 Celebrity.\u00a0 The main attractions seemed to be not so much about our ordinary world of gardening, its skills and problems, as entering a marquee\u00a0 to hear television gardeners selling and signing books. Thus we had not only all the Big Name Celebs from\u00a0 the BBC Gardener\u2019s World<\/em> programme but also various showbiz personalities, pop stars, even a famous ex-cricketer, using the occasion to sell, or endorse, products.<\/p>\n

The other trend I noticed was how many of the show gardens were linked to some notion of Charity, the purpose\u00a0 being, presumably, to warm the icy cockles of\u00a0one’s \u00a0heart as well as espousing the saintliness of the Celeb concerned.\u00a0 Thus we had Chris Beardshaw\u2019s garden sponsored by Hope for Heroes<\/em> (war veterans ); many other show gardens were linked to usually medical good causes.\u00a0 One of the most surreal show gardens was promoting sympathy for Alzheimers Sufferers; another garden particularly wasteful of water with its features, falls and rivulets, was drawing our attention to a Charity for providing bore-holes and wells to thirsty Africa. \u00a0\u00a0So there you have it,- Celebrity plus Good Causes seems to equal guaranteed Success.<\/p>\n

Poetry festivals still mostly feature real poetry readings. \u00a0At the recent Much Wenlock Festival, I served as attendant\/ ticket collector for two days\u2019 worth of events \u2013 a cheapskate way of hearing a lot of contemporary poetry.\u00a0 This year I was especially taken by the freshness of two young poets \u2013 Jonathan Edwards and Liz Berry \u2013 who somehow appear to be unspoilt\/uncelebritised by the huge success of their first collections. There was a great deal of interesting poetry of all kinds, from slam to \u2018serious poetry\u2019, on offer.\u00a0 But, inevitably perhaps, the main Saturday evening event was headlined by non-poet Celeb, Michael Rosen, well known for his amusing and insightful broadcasting and his children\u2019s books rather than any keen interest in poetry per se..\u00a0 Again perhaps inevitably he was selling something, – this time his \u2018latest\u2019 memoir of a North London upbringing.\u00a0 Even real poets (Simon Armitage springs to mind since I have seen him so often at G.C.S.E. promotions), seem to me to put themselves in danger of becoming attended to for their celebrity status, their media \u2018doings\u2019 and performing style, \u00a0rather than their poetry.\u00a0 At Much Wenlock another senior Name in the poetry world claimed to have nine pints inside him as he rolled up to read in \u00a0(I thought) a far too casual throwaway manner, playing, or perhaps pretending to play, the old-fashioned role of celebrity semi-drunk.\u00a0\u00a0 It must be tempting for regular readers on The Circuit\u00a0 to develop a celebrity-style personality. \u00a0I admire Carol Ann Duffy for appearing not<\/span> to succumb to celebrity worship, even to the extent of sometimes appearing rather grumpy and reluctant to perform. Gillian Clarke is another who concentrates on projecting her poems rather than selling her Self.\u00a0\u00a0 Other, perhaps bigger, Literary festivals (Cheltenham is performing as I write, following on as it does from Glastonbury) promote themselves as hosting the starriest \u2013ever galaxy of Big Names for their writer\/Celebs.\u00a0 \u00a0Same old\u2026 Same old\u2026.<\/p>\n

I guess that there have always, even in pre-broadcasting days, been Celebrities, crowd pleasers, Court favourites, great beauties, leaders of fashion in dress or thought\u2026 Attractive for what? Youth? \u00a0Charisma? \u00a0Charm\u00a0 – that sense of a\u00a0 fellow human being thoroughly confident and at home within their own skin? Outrageousness? \u2018Sex appeal? Style? All these and more. Whatever it is that gives certain individuals that \u2018X factor\u2019 appeal.<\/p>\n

I guess that we have always needed such models of celebrity \u00a0to emulate or envy. \u00a0\u00a0I only hope that the cult of mere celebrity doesn\u2019t spread its lush weediness \u00a0into my small well-gardened world of real poetry too deeply or profusely.\u00a0 In the end, the poets I most admire, –\u00a0 Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marvell, Emily Dickinson, – have a marvellous way of disappearing into their creations, like the Cheshire Cat behind his smiling..<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Visiting a Royal Horticultural Show\u00a0\u00a0 –\u00a0 renamed \u201cThe Spring Festival\u201d – \u00a0at Malvern recently, I was struck by how much even the down-to-earth dirt-under-your-fingernails world of gardening has been infected by the cult of\u00a0 Celebrity.\u00a0 The main attractions seemed to be not so much about our ordinary world of gardening, its skills and problems, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-239","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=239"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":261,"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239\/revisions\/261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/keithchandlerpoet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}