It isn’t every day that a poetry dog fight makes the front pages of the New York Times. Makes me feel proud. Makes me feel alive.

Seems that Ruth Padel, the first woman to be elected to Oxford University’s prestigious chair in poetry, resigned. She admitted to having been part of a smear campaign to discredit her main rival Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, alleging at least two known cases of sexual harassment.

My favorite part of the article relays that British  commentators pointed out the “irony of hounding a distinguished literary figure on the basis of long-ago sexual transgressions when many of Britian’s greatest poets were social or political reprobates, by the standards of modern-day Britain.”

I have a few reactions, only half way through my morning decaf:

• refreshing that women poets can keep up with the men, scoundrel-wise
• refreshing to be reminded that most poets, well great poets, are serious shitheads
• refreshing to be reminded that great poetry doesn’t care who writes it.

As a side note, and as gently pointed out to me by Hamilton Cain,  Carol Ann Duffy did not get the post, but was awarded the highest honor in the land: poet laureate. 

When I was in London last year, I happened upon her book Rapture in a little shop on Charing Cross Road (okay, it was a chain store in Notting Hill).  I read the title poem, the first poem and the last. My usual test for buying a poetry book. I bought it, devoured it, and have reread it a few times. I haven’t been able to find her poems on-line, or I’d link one here. Treat yourself. Anyway, I hope they find some dirt on her soon, like she eats babies for breakfast.

Filed under: Poetry |