The election for the Oxford Professor of Poetry has again become mired in controversy after the only woman in the race pulled out in protest at sexism and “serious flaws” in the election process.
Paula Claire, an Oxford-based poet, informed the University on Tuesday that she was withdrawing from the contest because she thought the election was biased against her. There is less than a week until voting closes on Wednesday.
She said she was dismissively described as a “performer and artist” in Oxford’s official announcement, which omitted to mention that she is also a poet.
The “last straw” for Claire was a flysheet in last week’s Oxford Gazette, the official University journal, which backed Geoffrey Hill’s election campaign.
Hill, 77, is the favourite to win the election. He is seen as the establishment candidate, with more than fifty Oxford academics supporting him.
Described by Claire as “repugnant,” the flysheet said that Hill was “quite simply a giant…the finest living poet in English today.” Claire said that the University was backing Hill, “and the rest of us are ignored as not worthy to be in the set-up”.
Claire said, “I haven’t withdrawn in a pique – I’ve withdrawn for women.
“The post was founded in 1708. They haven’t had a woman since then and I think they’re still determined to put a man in.”
Some have suggested that Claire did not understand the nature of the flysheets. Any candidates with support from ten members of Oxford’s Congregation (academics and senior administrators) can place a flysheet in the Gazette. Hill is the only one to have done so as yet, but others are expected to follow suit.
Her resignation letter demanded that a committee independent of the Faculty of English be set up to run the election “in a genuinely reformed and modern way: efficiently, transparently and democratically, backed up by advice from internet experts and given an independent complaints procedure”.
A University spokesperson said that Oxford did “not accept her allegations that the election process has been unfair. No special arrangements have been made for this election that are inconsistent with normal University operations in this respect.”
The disgraced former Oxford Professor of Poetry, Ruth Padel, has also been criticised for publicly endorsing two friends, including Hill, from the ten remaining candidates for this year’s election to the Professorship.
As she is the most recent holder of the post, many feel Padel ought to remain independent.
She resigned after only nine days in the illustrious position last year, after Cherwell revealed that she had been involved in a smear campaign against her opponent, Derek Walcott.
She had sent emails to journalists detailing accusations of sexual assault made against Walcott in the 1980s and 1990s.
But Padel, 63, told the Camden New Journal last week that she would endorse Geoffrey Hill and Michael Horovitz.
“Geoffrey is a great poet – he is full of such wonder. Michael Horowitz is very good at enthusing people. Both of them are friends of mine and both would be good,” she said.
The duties of the Professor are to give one public lecture each term, for all five years that the Professorship is held. Professors must also “encourage the art of poetry in the University”, according to the University’s regulations.
“Geoffrey is world class and gives some truly extraordinary lectures,” Padel said.
“But three lectures a year for five years is actually rather taxing for someone of a certain age because they are not just any lecture – they have to be really, really good ones.”
The University had hoped that this year’s contest would be controversy-free after the scandal surrounding Walcott and Padel last May. However a confrontation has also erupted between Michael Horovitz and a rival candidate, Roger Lewis.
Lewis, a literary critic and biographer, attacked the two favourites, Hill and Horovitz. “I’m sure they are nice old codgers, but I’m afraid I find their work serious-minded to the point of pain and obscure of purpose,” he said.
“No more solemnity and pompousness, please.”
Horovitz responded, “Lewis has conflated a superficial impression of Hill with a blurred and misleading one of me.
“Such blanket misrepresentation, bearing out Alexander Pope’s warning ‘A little learning is a dangerous thing’, qualifies Lewis for a Services to Dumbing Down award rather than for the poetry professorship he craves.”
Brasenose-educated Horovitz believes his beatnik background and involvement in performance poetry will give him more credibility than his rivals.
“I’ve devoted most of my life over the half-century since I graduated from Oxford to extending the then generally approved and educationally transmitted boundary lines controlling arts media and poetic communications in Britain and elsewhere,” he said.
But his claim to be the best performance poet of the election is challenged by the well-known Oxford slam poet Steve Larkin, who has also been nominated for the role.
Larkin is a familiar face on the Oxford stage, from the Cellar to the backroom at the Bullingdon Arms, and lectures on Performance Poetry at Oxford Brookes.
He hosted the first Oxford University Poetry Slam Podcast competition last year. It was won by Chris Turner, St Hugh’s, a member of the Oxford Imps.
“I intend to reload the literary canon and fire it through the walls of any stifling ivory tower that blocks the emergence of an exciting and inclusive live literature scene,” Larkin said.
This year’s election for the professorship is attracting particular interest because it is the first year that eligible voters have been able to vote online. In order to vote, you have to be a graduate of Oxford, and have registered your intention to vote. Voting closes on Wednesday of 8th Week and the results will be announced on Friday.
Stephen Moss, former literary editor of the Guardian, is another of the ten running for the post. He told Cherwell that he was the “democratising candidate”, which is no bad thing given the “Oxford-insidery fancy franchise” nature of previous elections.
The potential to reach about 200,000 electors has brought the contest to Facebook. On this front, Larkin is ahead with 406 members of the “Steve Larkin for Professor of Poetry” group. Geoffrey Hill’s group has 316 members.
