Professor of Poetry
The Oxford Professorship of Poetry is regarded as one of the most prestigious and prominent posts in the field of poetry. The Professorship of Poetry is held for four years.
A.E. Stallings
A.E. Stallings is a multi-award winning poet whose accolades include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Poets’ Prize, and the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize. Her books include Archaic Smile (1999), Hapax (2006), Olives (2012), Like (2018), and This Afterlife (2022). She will succeed Alice Oswald.
Professor Marion Turner, Chair of the English Faculty Board at Oxford, said, ‘Poetry is the heart of the English Faculty and other Humanities Faculties in Oxford. Poetry engages and excites children before prose does. Poetry crosses cultures and time: in the pandemic many people realised anew its power and importance. I am delighted to welcome A.E. Stallings as Oxford’s 47th Professor of Poetry, confident that she will bring something new and thrilling to the role, as her predecessors have done.
A.E. Stallings is a poet of unusual range and flexibility. A translator, a Classicist, a poet who is particularly focused on technique and form, she runs regular workshops with refugees, teaches extensively, and writes on poetry by American, English, Canadian, Greek, Irish, and Afro-Caribbean poets. We are extremely lucky to be able to host her for the next four years, and I know that her talent will be generative for a generation of our students and other members of the Oxford community.’
A new Oxford Professor of Poetry is elected every four years, and their responsibilities include giving a public lecture each term, as well as an oration at the University’s honorary degree ceremony every other year.
Voting was open to members of Convocation, a group that includes Oxford graduates who have had their degree formally conferred, and members of staff who make up the University’s ‘parliament’, known as Congregation.
21st Century
| Name | Date of Professorship |
|---|---|
| Christopher Ricks (1933– ) | 2004–9 |
| Sir Geoffrey Hill (1932–2016) | 2010–15 |
| Simon Armitage (1963– ) | 2015-19 |
| Alice Oswald (1966– ) | 2019-23 |
20th Century
| Name | Date of Professorship |
|---|---|
| A C Bradley (1851–1935) J W Mackail (1859–1945) Sir Thomas Herbert Warren (1853–1930) [Vacancy] W P Ker (1855–1923) H W Garrod (1878–1960) E. de Selincourt (1870–1943) George Gordon (1881–1942) Adam Fox (1883–1977) [Vacancy] Sir Maurice Bowra (1898–1971) Cecil Day-Lewis (1904–72) W H Auden (1907–73) Robert Graves (1895–1985) Edmund Blunden (1896–1974) Roy B Fuller (1912–91) John Wain (1925–94) John Jones (1924–2016) Peter Levi (1931–2000) Seamus Heaney (1939–2013 ) James Fenton (1949– ) Paul Muldoon (1951– ) | 1901–6 1906–11 1911–16 [Vacancy 1917–19] 1920–3 1923–8 1928–33 1933–8 1938–43 [Vacancy 1944–5] 1946–51 1951–5 1956–61 1961–6 1966–8 1968–73 1973–8 1979–84 1984–9 1989–94 1994–9 1999–2004 |
19th Century
| Name | Date of Professorship |
|---|---|
| Edward Copleston (1776–1849) John Josias Conybeare (1779–1824) Henry Hart Milman (1791–1868) John Keble (1792–1866) James Garbett (1802–79) Thomas Legh Claughton (1808–92) Matthew Arnold (1822–88) Sir Francis Hastings Charles Doyle (1810–88) J C Shairp (1819–85) Francis Turner Palgrave (1824–97) William John Courthope (1842–1917) | 1802–12 1812–21 1821–31 1831–42 1842–52 1852–7 1857–67 1867–77 1877–85 1885–95 1895–1900 |
Past Professors of Poetry
18th Century
| Name | Date of Professorship |
|---|---|
| Joseph Trapp (1679–1747) | 1708–18 |
| Thomas Warton (1688[?]–1745) | 1718–28 |
| Joseph Spence (1699–1768) | 1728–38 |
| John Whitfield ([?]) | 1738–41 |
| Robert Lowth (1710–87) | 1741–51 |
| William Hawkins (1722–1801) | 1751–6 |
| Thomas Warton (1728–90) | 1756–66 |
| B. Wheeler ([?]) | 1766–76 |
| John Randolph (1749–1813) | 1776–83 |
| Robert Holmes (1748–1805) | 1783–93 |
| James Hurdis (1763–1801) | 1793–1802 |
Further information
- Further particulars for the Professor of Poetry (PDF)
- Information on past elections can be found in the Gazette.