For over 300 years, the post has been a most respected and admired position for any poet worth his salt. Famous previous occupants include the Anglo-American poet W.H. Auden who wrote ‘Funeral Blues”; Matthew Arnold writer of “Dover Beach”; and the Irish poet Seamus Heaney famed for his poems “Digging” and “Blackberry Picking”.

The position is described as the most high profile poetry position behind that of the National Poet Laureate. Nominations for the post will continue until the 29th of April and then around three weeks later, on the 16th of May, Oxford graduates will vote for their favourite choice.

A.K. Mehrotra is professor of English at the University of Allahabad in the Uttar Pradesh state of northern India. He is a prize-winning poet and literary critic with fans and supporters including writers Tariq Ali, Amit Chaudhuri and Toby Litt. The Oxford English lecturer Peter D. McDonald has described him as ‘one of the finest poets working in any language’, and ‘a poet-critic of an exceptionally high order’.

“Mehrotra has much to say of value – of urgency – on the matter of multilingualism, creative practice, and translation (in both its literal and figurative sense), issues that are pressingly important in today’s world.” said McDonald in a recent interview.

As well as teaching, the incumbent in the position of Oxford University’s Professor of Poetry will be expected to give a number of speeches and lectures over the year. Also in the mix for the post are Caribbean poet Derek Walcott and British classical scholar Ruth Padel.

Elephants on parade

“Absent they’ll be! Our frolicsome
Elephants have been shunned!
We must protest to officialdom,
We’ll stand and announce a bundh*!”

The annual Republic Day parade,
Where Indians stand proudly,
Marks the years since old British rule
and my, do the crowds sing loudly!

© Edward Beaman-Hodgkiss

*bundh: a general strike in India.

The original news story can be found in this short Times Online piece.