On Thursday 18th February, nominations opened for the position of Oxford Professor of Poetry. Yet fears remain that the position’s reputation has been tarnished by last year’s scandal involving Ruth Padel and Derek Walcott.
Geoffrey Hill and Anne Stevenson are among the names of eminent poets currently being suggested as potential candidates for the post. However, the election will be different this year, in response to the 2009 competition for the post.
The election campaign saw Padel become Professor of Poetry, beating Indian poet and critic Arvind Mehrotra by 297 votes to 129.
But Padel resigned less than two weeks after her victory, after admitting to passing material to journalists which related to her rival candidate, Derek Walcott.
It was revealed that Padel had sent emails to two national newspapers alerting them of claims of sexual harassment against Walcott, the Nobel laureate, who had already pulled out of the race.
There have been changes to the voting system for the 300-year-old professorship. Under the old system only Oxford graduates could vote in person on one particular day. The current system allows graduates to vote online over a period of time.Hopeful candidates must be nominated by twelve or more graduates by 5th May.
Other candidates which have been suggested for the post include Oxford’s own John Fuller, Michael Longley, and Alice Oswald, along with American writers such as Jorie Graham or Robert Pinsky.
Blake Morrison and former poet laureate, Andrew Motion have both ruled themselves out of the running. Motion has commented, “Hill would get my vote.”
Stevenson seems a strong candidate having won the Lannan prize for a lifetime’s achievement in poetry.
Disputes over the credibility of the position have been widely covered in the press since the events last year.
Broadcaster and writer Clive James commented last July that he “would rather throw himself off a cliff” than take the job. But he did concede that “the botched election might have made it a poisoned chalice, but what a chalice it is.”
Dr Seamus Perry, Deputy Chair of the English Faculty board, disagreed with the idea that the position had been tarnished. He told Cherwell, “The events of last year were obviously regrettable, but I think the Chair itself has emerged unscathed,” adding, “in an odd sort of way… the whole sorr
y kerfuffle helped to advertise the Professorship and to remind everyone of the distinction of its long history.”
He praised the changes to the voting system and the new opportunity to vote online, saying that the position being “appointed by such a wide potential electorate (something like 300,000 people) is a good [thing] because it recognises that poetry, while it matters to academics, matters to more people than just academics.”
It is unlikely that Mehrotra will run again after last year’s failure. He joins the likes of C. S. Lewis, F. R. Leavis and Robert Lowell as past unsuccessful candidates for the position.
The professorship was established in 1707 and comes with a £7,000 stipend. It has previously been held by Matthew Arnold, W. H. Auden, Robert Graves, A. C. Bradley and Seamus Heaney amongst others.
Providing that more than one candidate is put forward, the winner of the position will be announced on 18th June after voting. They will take up the position in the academic year beginning autumn 2010.
