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Wole Soyinka far ahead of Simon Armitage, others in race for Oxford University job

Nigerian playwright and poet, Prof. Akinwande Oluwole "Wole" Babatunde Soyinka, is presently leading other ‘contestants’ for the post of the Professor of Poetry at the Oxford University.

 

According to The Guardian of UK, the position, a five-year role, was established in the early 18th century and has been held by literary giants like Robert Graves and WH Auden.

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There is excitement over who will get the position which is voted for by Oxford graduates and is described as "the UK’s second most important poetry position, behind that of poet laureate."

Soyinka, who was nominated by over 90 Oxford graduates, is well ahead of the closest rival, American poet, novelist and playwright, Simon Armitage.

Armitage, a professor of poetry at the Sheffield University got 54 nominations, a far cry from Soyinka's 90.

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Armitage, quoted in The Guardian, said he would honoured to get the job.

“If Oxford saw fit to appoint a self-schooled poet who views poetry from a hill above a Yorkshire village, then I would be greatly excited and deeply honoured to take on the challenge," he said.

The Guardian writes that there are even more stalwarts in the race for the coveted position.

"Three more candidates are also in the running, with poet AE Stallings entering the race late last week alongside the poet, novelist and critic Ian Gregson, who is currently professor of creative writing at Bangor University, and the poet, publisher and psychotherapist Seán Haldane.”

Soyinka who won the 1986 Nobel Prize in Literature, the first African to do so, is more respected for his plays but he is also an established poet with several collections, like Idanre and other poems, and world-famous poems like Abiku and Telephone Conversation.

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He is yet to make a statement about his nomination.

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