The news that Ruth Padel has resigned from the position of Oxford's Professor of Poetry - after only holding this most-honoured post for a week or so - is sad enough. But seeing how the media has - as if this was a replay of Frost/Nixon - hounded a serious poet out of a serious house - makes it bad, too. Eyewear believes Padel, once appointed, should have been allowed to remain. While I think it was low to send out anonymous packages smearing Walcott, it is also clear Padel herself did not do this; and, it is also clear that Walcott's academic misconduct was documented and real. Why shouldn't a man or woman worried about harassment be able to mention this openly? There is something loathsome about the way a bunch of eminent older male establishment figures from broadcasting and academia began to pile on the abuse - against Padel, the brilliant poet, not against the allegedly-predatory older poet.
The media fuelled this crisis. It escalated because - almost uniquely for poetry in the UK - it was on the front pages for the last few days. Eyewear believes that, should journalists cover poetry more closely, they'd realise a lot of its doings are sub-Nixonian in terms of deals and secret agreements and other carrying on (a lot of backs get mutually scratched, a lot of people get blackballed) - but it seems a bit rich to start now, and act as if Padel was the first, or worst. Perhaps her crime was hubris. The literary types who run the show in London don't like people climbing above their station. Padel knocked out Faber's big boy, and that must have made a few people wince. Now, where are we? Oxford has lost out on two superb candidates - okay, perhaps flawed as humans, but not as poets - and what started so well has become a second-rate Greek tragedy.
The media fuelled this crisis. It escalated because - almost uniquely for poetry in the UK - it was on the front pages for the last few days. Eyewear believes that, should journalists cover poetry more closely, they'd realise a lot of its doings are sub-Nixonian in terms of deals and secret agreements and other carrying on (a lot of backs get mutually scratched, a lot of people get blackballed) - but it seems a bit rich to start now, and act as if Padel was the first, or worst. Perhaps her crime was hubris. The literary types who run the show in London don't like people climbing above their station. Padel knocked out Faber's big boy, and that must have made a few people wince. Now, where are we? Oxford has lost out on two superb candidates - okay, perhaps flawed as humans, but not as poets - and what started so well has become a second-rate Greek tragedy.
Comments
the NY Times reports that she admits to having sent such messages. We would all be well served by excellent public critical discourse about poetry, which is exactly the point of the Oxford Chair. She has shown herself unworthy, although not for her poetry. However, this is not about poetry. It is a critical position.
Harold
I see what you are saying. However, I know Ruth Padel. She has done a lot for British poetry, is very generous, and very smart. Sh would have made a superb professor. I acknowledge she emaild the journalists - one of them is poet Olivia Cole who often covers poetry stories - but that wasn't a smear campaign. Walcott admitted harassing those students, so what Ruth Padel emailed to the journalists was relevant. However, if Padel was behind the posting of the 200 copies of the chapter about Walcott, that would be a different matter - far stranger and more intense a campaign. The question remains, should poets, from Poud to Padel, from Waclott to Eliot, be judged by aesthetic or ethical stanadards, or both?
I have to take issue with practically your entire post here:
1. You say "Padel should have been allowed to remain". But she wasn't fired. She chose to go. Your claim that she was hounded out by the press won't bear scrutiny. She resigned after it had emerged that she'd emailed journalists with allegations about her competitor. The same claims that were made in the smear campagin against him (unproven allegations from 27 and 13 years ago).
2. You say that "it is also clear" that Padel had nothing to do with the smear campaign. In fact, it's far from clear, and sending emails to journalists alerting them to the smear might cause a disinterested observer to think it quite likely she was involved; at the very least, she was taking advantage of it.
3. You ask "Why shouldn't a man or woman worried about harassment be able to mention this openly?". Of course, they should. But Padel should have left others to do this. Is emailing journalists the right way to raise such concerns?
4. You say "the media fuelled this crisis", when in fact, the whole affair blew up when person(s) unknown tried to exploit the media in favour of Padel and against Walcott. It was those persons who fuelled the crisis.
5. You say "Padel knocked out Faber's big boy, and that must have made a few people wince." Are you seriously suggesting that this caused Padel to be forced out of her position, given the background to the case? Remember, it was Walcott who was the agrieved party.
6. At the end of the first paragraph, you describe Padel as "the brilliant poet", while describing Walcott as the "allegedly predatory older poet". Is he not also "brilliant". And is "older" derogatary here, paired as it is with "allegedly predatory"? As a poet Todd, you must be aware of how you're using language here.
In her speech at Hay announcing her resignation, Padel claimed she'd acted "in complete good faith". So why resign? It reminds me of the corrupt MPS, who, while paying back thousands of pounds in expenses, claim they've done nothing wrong.
Alan Baker
Interesting...
"The question remains"? No it doesn't. Anyway, the above isn't so much an actual question (with an actual answer) as a topic for Junior Grad debate, an invitation to corny rhetorical flourishes and polite clapping and booing. There can be no definitive answer because each will depend on the circumstances, and in which arena the judgment is taking place.
The "question" pertaining to the Walcott/Padel fracas is much simpler. If you have a vested interest in a competition (e.g. for an academic post) should you forward negative comments/information on your rival to journalists? Don't tax yourself too much trying to answer (the prize is quite small).
'In darkness by day we must press on,
giddy at the tilt of a negative crystal.'
The smears against Walcott were just that: smears. No allegations against him were proven, and the cases in question were decades ago. I've read the email Padel sent to hacks and it was disgraceful; a clear and deliberate attempt to bring down her opponent. She was right to resign. I only wish she would stop pretending she was 'naive'; she clearly knew exactly what she was doing, and she got caught out doing it.
This isn't about Padel's poetry, or about the 'establishment', or about her gender, as some are also absurdly suggesting; it's about her underhand behaviour. She hasn't done poetry any favours here.
I appreciate your post. The entire affair stinks, but there clearly is a double-standard.
And Harold, where do we have evidence that Walcott's critical methods are any better? This is a man who has sexually harassed female students. Do you think this behaviour just disappears?