Article
Derek Walcott withdraws candidacy for Oxford poetry professor
May 12, 2009
Walcott was one of three candidates in the running for the position – the most influential in poetry in the UK behind that of the laureateship – alongside Ruth Padel and the Indian poet Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. He was backed by major names in the literary world, including Booker winner Alan Hollinghurst, Graham Robb, Marina Warner, poet Jenny Joseph, and professor Hermione Lee, and was seen as the frontrunner for the post.
Oxford graduates are due to vote for their choice of poetry professor on 16 May. But the Nobel laureate said today that he was withdrawing from the election, hitting out at the “low tactics”, and the “low and degrading attempt at character assassination” it had become.
Read the full article here.
Nobel prize winner Derek Walcott has withdrawn from the race to become Oxford's professor of poetry following an anonymous letter campaign.
The campaign saw up to 100 Oxford academics sent photocopied pages from a book detailing a sexual harassment claim made against Walcott by a Harvard student in 1982.Walcott was one of three candidates in the running for the position – the most influential in poetry in the UK behind that of the laureateship – alongside Ruth Padel and the Indian poet Arvind Krishna Mehrotra. He was backed by major names in the literary world, including Booker winner Alan Hollinghurst, Graham Robb, Marina Warner, poet Jenny Joseph, and professor Hermione Lee, and was seen as the frontrunner for the post.
Oxford graduates are due to vote for their choice of poetry professor on 16 May. But the Nobel laureate said today that he was withdrawing from the election, hitting out at the “low tactics”, and the “low and degrading attempt at character assassination” it had become.
Read the full article here.
Source: guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 12 May 2009
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