Professor of Poetry Lecture: On behalf of a Pebble

Alice Oswald

TORCH is delighted to support the English Faculty to host the Professor of Poetry Lecture 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZIFUyBaFnZM

Professor of Poetry Lecture with Alice Oswald - On behalf of a Pebble

This is a lecture about living and dead objects inside living and dead poems.

Alice Oswald

Alice Oswald is the current Professor of Poetry at the Faculty of English. She took up her post in September 2019. 

Alice Oswald’s first two lectures as Professor of Poetry are available online: ‘The Art of Erosion’ and ‘An Interview with Water‘

Professor Ros Ballaster, Chair of the English Faculty Board at Oxford, said: ‘Poetry plays an important role in our universities and society. It is a place for reflection in language and about language.

‘The election of Alice Oswald sees the tenure of our first female Professor of Poetry. To adopt the words in her own poetry, it is the fulfilment of long balancing “the weight of hope against the light of patience”. Hers is a remarkable, resonant talent and we count ourselves privileged to host her for four years.

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.

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