A long sleep that smelled of death;
that’s how it felt in the cave-dark,
in the sealed-up maze.
Voices called to us through tubes;
a torment of fragments
and a few sweet whispers that melted
into the dank of dream.
Then the light came,
the wings to the world
and we went up into the sun,
the pieces of our lives remade
in rivulets of wax.
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So the weeks of campaigning are over, the spats are being covered in a layer of settling dust and the dilettante candidates are vanishing over the horizon, hopefully never to bother poetry in the name of self-promotion again (yes, I do mean Roger Lewis). And Geoffrey Hill has won the Oxford Poetry Professorship, as was expected.
A shame, then, that the whole closing process has been marred by triumphalism and snooty dismissals, from some quarters, of all the other candidates. “Geoffrey Hill Triumphs…” blared Oxford University’s website and a litter of Twitterers tweeted this chest-beating all across the web. A shame that Hill’s muscular verse and criticism couldn’t be left to speak for itself.
Hill is a remarkable, lauded poet, but University and media shouting about Hill’s many awards just betrays the gaping hole in the heart of the process, as well as exposing their blinkered view of what poetry could and should be. Poetry should enliven, excite, enthrall, mystify, anger and entice in equal measure. It should not just be shuttered up in halls of residence, gloating about its awards. Spires can’t get down to the business of dreaming if you clog them with snobbery.
“Unlike the others, [Hill] is a distinguished poet of international renown,” sneered Harry Mount on the Telegraph website today. Yes, but is that all that matters here? Christopher Ricks wasn’t a poet at all. Should he now be disqualified from his five year tenure as Poetry Professor? Of course not.
What matters is that poetry is served well. A certain side of it will be by Hill’s lectures: academe most particularly. But poetry at the grit, the coalface, the street level? Poetry as a popular art? No, that won’t be helped immediately by Hill’s victory. Oxford has missed a trick here – it should have learned from Carol Ann Duffy’s marvellous re-imagining of the role of Poet Laureate.
Which is why I believe that someone should create a Shadow Poetry Professorship, running concurrently with the Oxford Professorship. In the same way that Adrian Mitchell became Red Pepper’s Shadow Poet Laureate, a professorship that is duty bound to address the needs of poetry and the readers of poetry rather than simply academic circles could revitalise people’s perceptions of the art form. It would need to be sponsored by something less limiting than a magazine. I would suggest a newer university, perhaps one that wants to take a gentle poke at Oxford and has a wide curriculum including the performing arts. Or a literature festival.
I would also suggest appointing Michael Horovitz as the Shadow Professor of Poetry for whoever is brave enough or funded enough to set it up.
I am, of course, biased, as he’s my father – but he was also Geoffrey Hill’s closest contender. He came in a worthy second, if some 800 votes behind. My father may not be an establishment darling, but it is ridiculous of certain sections of the press to diminish him in the way they have been trying to – he has had a huge, enlivening and mostly unrewarded impact on British poetry in the last 50 years. And he would make a brilliant Shadow Professor of Poetry, at high brow and grass root.
So; who’s up for it?
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Much to my surprise, and slightly confused pleasure, I am on the voting list for this year’s Hospital Club 100, presented in association with the Independent.
“The Hospital Club 100 is a search for the most influential people in the creative and media industries,” says the club’s website, “with the emphasis on current contribution and importance, not just the size of someone’s celebrity status, profile, bank balance, titles or past reputation.”
The club’s “network and panel of experts have put together their shortlist”, but it’s now time to “have your say about who represent the future of the creative industries. The list is unique in that it contains both emerging and established names, highlighting not only those who will be influencing Creative Britain’s immediate future, but also in the longer term.”
I’ve been nominated as an Emerging Poet in the Publishing and Writing section. Which is an arrival of sorts, as I have probably been emerging, on and off, for the last 15 years. Oh well…
There’s a wide range of people to vote for and I would recommend taking a good look at the lists and categories and voting in as many of the categories as interest you – there are a number of intriguing and amazing people in the emerging lists, many of whom are worth voting for and a number of whom I would count as pretty well established. Matt Smith, the new Doctor Who, is a case in point.
Now, I’d be delighted if you were to vote for me – I’m the only ‘emerging’ poet on the list (the only other poet is Don Paterson, on the established list), poetry always needs a boost in the media and I would be fantastically grateful and amused should my name appear anywhere in the final 100 – but there are a great number of amazing and creative people to vote for, so I’m not going to hold it against you if you don’t vote for me. The choice is yours.
To find out more about all the candidates and to vote, click here. Voting continues for two weeks and the result is announced in early July.
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