Contemporary Writers at Oxford

Whilst the Faculty's syllabus does not include creative writing, there is a strong ethos of creative writing within the Faculty and students are encouraged to further their creative pursuits.

Faculty members include an impressive range of poets (Dr Peter McDonald, Professor Lucy Newlyn, Mr Bernard O’Donoghue, Mr Tom Paulin, Mr Craig Raine), all of whom have published collections or significant work recently, and a novelist with three published novels and a dozen short fictions (Professor Elleke Boehmer).

Dr Peter McDonald organises the Tower Poetry Competition at Christ Church, disseminated in his 2005 anthology, Tower Poets, on a website and in his monthly publication, Poetry Matters.

The Poetry Society is run by undergraduates (Bernard O'Donoghue is currently the senior member for the Faculty). It is very active, running regular weekly poetry readings through term, at which distinguished poets are invited to read - recently Alice Oswald, Matthew Hollis.

In addition, there are numerous other readings through the year, in colleges or public venues - the Arts Festival at Easter often has Faculty poets giving readings as well as guest speakers; and there is an open mic session each term at Blackwell's, where undergrads read alongside Faculty poets.

Funded by the Institute for the Advancement of University Learning, Lucy Newlyn and Jenny Lewis have experimented with integrating creative writing workshops into the academic teaching of English: the results of their experiment (including the undergraduate poetry it generated) were published in a 2-volume book, Synergies: Creative Writing in Academic Practice.

Lucy Newlyn is co-editor of Branch Lines: Edward Thomas and Contemporary Poetry, an anthology of 55 contemporary poets writing about the influence of Edward Thomas on their work. Co-edited with Guy Cuthbertson, Lucy's book Branch Lines grew out of a Conference at Oxford, funded by Tower Poetry and the English Faculty, at which many of the local poets appeared to read their poems alongside Thomas's (Andrew Motion, Poet laureate, appeared as a guest speaker, as did Michael and Edna Longley). Lucy co-hosts with the Professor of Poetry, regular workshops called 'The Craft of Poetry'.

In 2009, Fiona Stafford held a conference, 'Burns and the Poets', at which the gust poets included Douglas Dunn, Don Paterson and Robert Crawford; the culminating event was an evening of poetry and music given by Bernard O'Donoghue, Tom Paulin and Mick Henry.

Several of the Faculty's poets have recently participated in a project run by Rachel Buxton at Oxford Brookes (in collaboration with Asylum Welcome).

Craig Raine edits Areté, a leading forum for new work.

Matthew Reynolds has just published a novel, Designs for a Happy Home (Bloomsbury).

Sir Christopher Ricks has organised poetry readings each term, involving guest poets from the USA alongside local poets, including Bernard O'Donoghue, Jon Stallworthy, Andrew McNeillie and Carmen Bugan.

The Faculty also hosts the Professor of Poetry who is elected by Convocation for a five year stint.