Sunday 24 May 2009

Such bloody awful poetry

Those of you who've ever been involved in student politics will know that the smaller the stakes, the bitterer the poison. So you won't be surprised (or perhaps interested) by the race for the Oxford Poetry Professor post - a non-job which involves giving a small number of lectures over a few years. But because Oxford and Cambridge are the jealously guarded property of the élite, the race attracts a good deal of backbiting, all stirred up by a press which loves tales of shenanigans in high places.

This year, the competition was between a Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott and average poet Ruth Padel, who has been all over the papers this year because she wrote a lot of poems about her ancestor, Charles Darwin. I've used her book, 52 Ways of Looking at a Poem for teaching purposes.

The race has been convulsed by 'friends' of Padel anonymously mailing out pages of a book which claims (convincingly) that Walcott sexually harrassed students 25 years ago. Walcott withdrew from the race, Padel won, and now it turns out that she mailed journalists saying things like 'I don't want you to pay any attention to the following claims made in this book which you might not have seen…'. Never mind the scansion - that's good shenanigans.

The depressing thing is that this pointless and sordid affair will fill entire chapters of various boring autobiographies, dutifully to be reviewed in the serious newspapers as though poetry and poets were central to our cultural lives. If only poetry were that important. I'm sure it's the hot gossip at this week's Hay Literary Festival, but nobody else will notice. I wish I were there though - my friend Aimee Lloyd goes for a week of intellectual replenishment every year, but instead I'm googling students' sentences and trawling through footnotes… not that there's anything wrong with marking! Oh well - Hay is a beautiful Welsh town with 80 bookshops, and the last thing I need is that kind of temptation.

(Post title is a Morrissey quote, by the way)

6 comments:

The Deer Friend said...

Is Aimee Lloyd the daughter of Alan Lloyd by any chance, founder member of the Ledbury?

The Plashing Vole said...

I don't think so! You're so erudite!

Anonymous said...

Vole - What would you say are your favourite poets and why?

Lauren said...

To ease your dissapointment over Hay literary festival. Look at this, I have a feeling it is going to be good.

http://manchesterliteraturefestival.co.uk/

And in Manchester to! :)

The Plashing Vole said...

Thanks for this Natural Blues: I'll definitely get along to some of the events.

Lauren said...

oops just realised the link I posted does not work. Ahwell you get my drift.

Last time the festival was on, im pretty sure there was a german market in Manchester. Hopefully the same will happen this year. Reading, writing, nice beers and food. Wonderful combination.