Professing Poetry

You are almost certainly unaware of (or at least unexcited by) the recent election of the next Oxford Professor of Poetry. It's a five-year post, appointed by a poll of those Oxford graduates who can be bothered to register to vote (a body termed, Oxford-style, "Convocation"). Last time round, I agitated on behalf of Alice Oswald (well, OK, I wrote a blog post and sent a few emails), who went on to win. You're welcome, Alice. There was no question in my mind that Oswald is a major contemporary poet with interesting things to say about poetry; there was also no doubting that most of those I knew who were qualified to vote in the contest would never have heard of her, or even given much thought to poetry in general. A little encouragement never hurts.

This time, I threw my utterly inconsequential weight behind candidate Don Paterson, although it's true that I forgot to post about it or send out emails, so it was just a case of my single vote: sorry about that, Don. Paterson, too, is a major contemporary poet with interesting things to say about poetry – I find his irreverent, working-poet's commentary on Shakespeare's sonnets indispensible – but I don't suppose many of my Oxford contemporaries will have heard of him, either. As I have said before, I fell among politicos and policy wonks, for whom poetry is not a priority.

TBH, it seemed a foregone conclusion to me; of the other candidates, only A.E. Stallings had much of a profile, and despite her reputation I couldn't really see her as a suitable candidate. Why not? I'd bought a copy of her recent selected poems, This Afterlife, and it seemed to me she is a one-note poet, playing up the resonances of the classics with the modern-day domestic scene, in a formally-patterned, ironic mode that links the broken washing machine to Homer, but that only rarely seem to achieve escape velocity from "light verse". Anne Carson, for example, does that gig a lot better IMHO, but she wasn't the candidate.

In the end, A.E. Stallings won. Which was (to me) an interesting surprise. Certainly, looking around the Web, there was a lot of campaigning for Stallings votes and very little going on for Paterson (who is, besides, male, Scottish, a jazz guitarist, and not an Oxford graduate – he left school at 16 – none of which will have helped his cause), and it's quite possible that a majority of poetry-reading Oxford graduates are precisely the constituency for one-note verse that plays up the resonances of the classics with the modern-day domestic scene. I prefer Paterson, but then I'm in the constituency for late-night brooding on the dark and dangerous questions, and have no problems with Scottishness or jazz. So it's possible a certain element of gender may have been in play here.

Anyway, for your enjoyment and edification, here's a good Stallings poem that I bookmarked: "After a Greek Proverb". The Greek proverb concerned is given as an epigraph to her poem, and transliterates as "Oudén monimóteron tou prosorinoú" which (according to Google translate) means something like "nothing is more permanent than the temporary". As a villanelle, the poem is inevitably reminiscent of Elizabeth Bishop (in particular her "One Art"), but I do know exactly what she's talking about: "there are always boxes that you never do unpack"... Oh, yes. But, does it do more than flesh out the proverb, though?

And here's one from Don Paterson's extraordinary collection 40 Sonnets: "Francesca Woodman". Francesca Woodman should be well-known to photography enthusiasts, not least because of the recent publication of her "artist's books" by Mack, but if not you can read about her tragically short life here; in a way, she is the enigmatic Nick Drake of photography. For me, Paterson's "sonnet" really captures the haunted mood of those strange, posed photographs made in dusty, derelict rooms. Does it do more than your typical "ekphrastic" poem, though?

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