Christopher Ricks elected Professor of Poetry

15 May 2004

Christopher Ricks has been named as the next Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford. He will succeed the poet and academic Paul Muldoon, who completes his five-year term of office at the end of September.

Professor Ricks received 214 votes in the election which took place in the Divinity School on Saturday 15 May. The full results are as follows:

Christopher Ricks: 214
Peter Porter: 175
Anne Carson: 105
Mark Walker: 20
Ian McMillan: 17

The result was announced at a meeting of Convocation, before the result was publicly announced by the Senior Proctor, Dr John Wheater, and the Junior Proctor, Revd Dr Judith Maltby.

Christopher Ricks is Professor of Humanities at Boston University. The Oxford-educated scholar is a champion of English poets including Milton, Tennyson and AE Housman, and has edited anthologies including The Oxford Book of English Verse. More recently, his works include an examination of the lyrics of Bob Dylan entitled Dylan's Visions of Sin.

The duties of the Professor include giving a public lecture each term and the Creweian Oration at the University's honorary degree ceremony every other year, setting the theme for, and judging, the Newdigate Prize and the Chancellor's English Essay Prize, judging the prize for an English poem on a sacred subject, and generally encouraging the art of poetry in the University. The new Professor of Poetry will give his first lecture in Michaelmas Term 2004.

More information about who has nominated the candidates, and a full list of previous Professors of Poetry, can be found on the web at www.admin.ox.ac.uk/councilsec/gov/poetry.shtml.

Notes to Editors:

• The election for the Professor of Poetry used the first past the post system, with electors voting for just one candidate.
• The current Professor of Poetry, Paul Muldoon, was elected to the Chair unopposed. In 1994 when James Fenton was elected, 451 people turned out to vote.
• The Professorship of Poetry was established in 1708 following a bequest by Henry Birkhead, a Berkshire landowner.
• The Professor is elected for a period of five years, and is not eligible for re-election. The Professor receives a small stipend of £5,427 p.a. (pay award pending), plus £40 for each Creweian Oration, plus, on one occasion, travel expenses for the Oration.
• According to the University Statutes, membership of Convocation is defined as 'all the former student members of the University who have been admitted to a degree (other than an honorary degree) of the University, and any other persons who are members for Congregation or who have retired having been members of Congregation on the date of their retirement'. A register of members of Congregation is published annually in the University Gazette.
• Details of the candidates are available on the web at www.admin.ox.ac.uk/councilsec/gov/poetry.shtml
• Regulations for Convocation elections can be found at www.admin.ox.ac.uk/statutes/regulations/1089-120.shtml.
• More information about the establishment of the Chair is available in The History of the University of Oxford (Vol V: The Eighteenth Century), edited by LS Sutherland and LG Mitchell (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1986)