Anindita Sengupta

…on this whole Oxford Poetry fiasco, and then I’ll stop (or maybe, not). But apparently our nominee AK Mehrotra had this to say:

“From India where I live, these extra-literary goings-on appear more unfortunate than amusing. I hope that some lessons are learnt from this, not least that the private lives of poets should, occasionally, be allowed to stay private.”

Sexual harassment = a man’s ‘private life’?

Dennis Loy Johnson at Moby Lives has been covering this quite a bit. Katy Evans Bush, who also wrote a piece on this at Guardian’s Cif, left a comment at Moby Lives which nails it:

I quoted Hermione Lee on my blog and I quote her again in my CiF piece, saying: “We are purveyors of poetry, not chastity.” As if it were just a sexual peccadillo.

Funnily enough, to the girl who was told that, unless she slept with him he would prevent her play (written for his course) from being produced, it probably didn’t seem like it was just about sex. It was more like being directly about her academic record. And if I’m not mistaken she only went public with it in the end because she heard about two other girls who had had the same treatment; one of them became depressed and the other had left the course entirely.

I’m sure Professor Lee, the great feminist biographer, would have expected to be taken more seriously than that when she was a student.

A culture that can’t even distinguish “sex” from the adjective “sexual” that modifies, in this case, the noun “harassment” isn’t anywhere near being ready even to debate the vexed question of whether this should debar Walcott from what is essentially a guest lectureship, not a pedagogic role.

The worst part is that Padel’s unfortunate behaviour has made people forget that the charges against Walcott were serious, and whether he should have been debarred or not was a serious question. It’s a question worth engaging with, because it cuts to the heart of what we expect from poets and public figures, and what we think of the relationship between ethics and poetry.

Instead, now Walcott is wronged hero, Padel is humiliated vamp, and all the real issues can go right back where they belong — under those university carpets. Plus you have some poets making vapid, dismissive statements about the whole issue like ‘who cares?’ or ‘what matters is that Poetry has suffered’ as if poetry exists in some sort of vacuum unaffected by (and un-affecting of) the real world. As if what happens in the real world, including sexual harassment, were not important to poetry at all.

The poetosphere has been abuzz with news about Derek Walcott’s dropping out of the Oxford Poetry Professor race because according to The Guardian, a  “100 academics mailed organizers missives an 1982 allegation of sexual harassment leveled against the poet.” Some poets posted notes about this on Facebook as well and some of the comments were along the lines of  ‘this is a small matter which should not come in the way of his being elected.’  Notice also that the Guardian article diminishes the allegations by alluding to them as part of a ‘smear campaign’. I’m not advocating quick blame but easy vindication is also disturbing. Why are people so eager to believe that Walcott is blameless in this matter? Or to forgive him for any ‘small mistakes’ he ‘may’ have committed?

Being a good (even great) poet doesn’t exempt you from human responsibility, does it? Or are poets such a back-patting, incestuous community that we are willing to overlook anything when the person at the other end is ‘one of us’?

The question here isn’t about the quality of Walcott’s poetry, which I will continue to read and appreciate. The question is about a hugely prestigious position of responsibility where he would have had power over students and been viewed as a role model. Sexual harassment is a pretty serious thing in this context.

Seth Abramson weighs in on this at his blog:

…my concern is less about Oxford University particularly, and more for (as I mentioned in my last post on Walcott, see link in next paragraph) the message it sends to young female writers, and for the possibility that Walcott, howsoever ceremonial his prospective professorship, might again be positioned to cruelly exploit vulnerable young students for his own sexual gratification.

An extract from a letter that I got from the WOMPO poetry listserve:

We are a group of women students at Oxford University and find this shocking and insulting. We would welcome your help, in demonstrating to the University and the British public, that Walcott’s sexual harassment and blackmail of women students are not mere “allegations,” as the British press assert, but a matter of record, with deeply offensive transcripts available in books and online.

Quite the opposite of Professor Lee’s assertion, we feel that electing a proven campus sexual predator, who is on record as admitting harassment in at least two cases, would shame not honour Oxford. The post is voted for by teachers at Oxford University. We feel the English Faculty is suppressing Walcott’s record. No one in Oxford or Britain knows or believes it. We find it scandalous, almost unbelievable, that it is a woman educator who is Walcott’s chief supporter in Oxford and in public.

Many of the other members of the listserv commented on how common it is for young female poets to have to deal with sexual harassment in class. I personally know two people who have suffered sexual harassment at renowned British universities and I’ve heard of many others. There’s no reason to believe that poetry courses are any different. Turning a blind eye to allegations or dismissing them as rumour probably stems partly from our eagerness to believe that poets are somehow nobler human beings above such mortal evil. But such ridiculous myths should not come in the way of justice and fair play. In most other situations, allegations of this sort would have affected the person’s chances, I imagine, and rightly so. Walcott’s withdrawal from the race is hardly a mark of sacrifice or deserving of pity. It’s probably a sign of common sense on his part because he realised that the protests would gain momentum.