Oxford’s poetry revolution at First Drafts

Oxford’s poetry revolution

Published

on December 19, 2007

At a time when poetry has seemingly been banished to the outer fringes of our culture, it’s astonishing to read that only 40 years ago, the election campaign for a new professor of poetry at Oxford could draw in national and international newspaper correspondents, television crews and the attention of such literary luminaries as Kingsley Amis, Bernard Levin and Arthur Miller. In the new issue of Prospect, Bernard Wasserstein tells the tale of how his insurgent campaign to get the Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko elected to the chair in 1968 almost succeeded—and managed to suck in all the various cultural currents of the time.

5 Responses to “Oxford’s poetry revolution”

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1 da' Square Wheelman
December 25, 2007 at 7:15 am

I met Y at St. Norbert College, a small Catholic college outside Green Bay, Wisconsin. He had been invited in the euphorias of ‘89-’91. To make this short, his visit was a SCANDAL. To a jr. prof., such as me, he was FANTASTIC!
2 jarek gutowski
January 6, 2008 at 8:03 pm

Y. and oxford ? hmm… After closer examination it’s not that surprising, as western “intelligentsia” has long tradition of moral and historical blindness. Y. was a conformist, playing fake game of being critical to soviet regime, when in fact he remained in symbiosis with that regime. His one real achievement was a status of
an “official opposition”, so he had it “both ways”. One has to really speak Russian to see how bad his poetry is.
So thanks to merciful Fate, you were spared bullshit.

Regards
Jarek
3 Derek Smith
January 7, 2008 at 1:56 am

I left Oxford in September 1968; having been banished to the wastelands of Sheffield, I heard little or nothing about the election of the Professor of Poetry. But reading this article brought on for me a flood of nostalgia for the Oxford of the 1960s, an Oxford so many of us loved and which the present Vice Chancellor has been trying (unsuccessfully) to destroy.
4 Martin Kaufman
January 12, 2008 at 3:02 am

Bernard Wasserstein has got one aspect of his chronology wrong, I believe. Suzy Creamcheese rode through Cornmarket Street about February 1967, not in 1968. I was there, alongside Bernard Wasserstein, as together we diverted the whole caravanserai of assorted hippies and ‘freaks’ (as they were then known) through the back gate of Balliol College. I shall never forget the hilarious attempts of the Rev. FLM Willis-Bund, Dean of Balliol, with one hand held resolutely in front of him, walking backwards in front of the noisy but friendly demonstration, trying Canute-like to prevent the whole gallimaufry from processing through the college and out into Broad Street. He failed, the demonstration passed on relentlessly, Suzy Creamcheese got her Oxford moment of fame, and the world sadly did not change.
5 Eli
January 16, 2008 at 1:50 am

After all these years, Bernard Wasserstein is no less naive as he was then. Yevtushenko was indeed a conformist - for that reason do not mention Yevtushenko and Sakharov in the same sentence.
“Babij Yar” is not to dismiss though … will probably make him immortal.