When Christopher Ricks was elected five years ago as Professor of Poetry at Oxford, Anne Carson’s name appeared on the list of those that Ricks had beaten to the post. It’s true Carson got half the number of votes that Ricks did — but perhaps 2009 will be her year. Carson is Canadian, born in 1950; she currently teaches in Michigan. She is an erudite poet with crossover appeal: her 1998 novel in verse, Autobiography of Red, sold tens of thousands of copies – a very great many for a poet. Carson has been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as the MacArthur “Genius Award”; she was a controversial winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2002 for her book The Beauty of the Husband – Robert Potts in The Guardian bemoaned the choice.

There is, however, no doubting her skill and intelligence. I wouldn’t dream of mentioning that her election would make her the first female Professor of Poetry at Oxford University.

As to the Laureateship, the post itself is sometimes seen, as the Oxford post never is, as something of a poisoned chalice. It’s hard to imagine any modern poet relishing the thought of writing an ode for Prince William’s wedding. And yet the Poet Laureate is the country’s most visible “face” of poetry, so my vote – even though I don’t get one – goes to Benjamin Zephaniah. He’s said himself that he has doubts about the whole thing: “I think it’s a kind of outdated idea, I think it could survive in a new way, but it needs modernising,” he’s said on his website, and he’d certainly be up for that aspect of the job. His books – from poetry collections such as Too Black, Too Strong to his novels for teenagers, such as Refugee Boy – pull no punches. Britain is full of fine poets – there are many names I could name – but I say to Benjamin, you go. And here’s to the future of poetry in all its wild and wondrous forms.

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