Britain's poets gain new status on campus

"Poetry and creative writing are booming now because there is a market for it among students," says Ms. Draycott, whose tenure at Oxford Brookes University is being sponsored by the Royal Literary Fund. "And because there is a democratization of the arts. In the sense that over the last 15 years, people have been encouraged to appreciate expressive arts in articulating the idea of the whole section of the society."

But if poetry as a mode of self-expression open to all is an appealing idea to some, there are others in British academia who are scornful. As more and more British universities join the bandwagon of institutions offering both undergraduate and graduate degrees in poetry, they point out that such proliferation will not necessarily breed quality creative writers. Instead, they warn, it may lead to an "Americanization" of British literature.

They may have a point. Much of the current thinking about creative writing stems from the United States. For instance, the University of Iowa in Iowa City offers a renowned writing program with a worldwide reputation. Many institutions in Britain are modeling their programs around what is found in America.

Eva Salzman, an American and acclaimed poet who now lives in Britain and has residencies at several British universities, agrees that popularization of poetry may ultimately demean the discipline, but dismisses fears of American poetry taking over.

"Popularization of poetry is introducing the idea that everyone can do it and this is leading to disrespect for it," she says. "It's very easy to take the stand that American literature is taking over at the expense of British literature. Nationalism can confuse what literature should be about. But I think attitude will change with increased collaborations between British and American poetry publishers."

However, despite renewed interests in the art, many poets working in academia complain that administrators are still undervaluing them. One writer compared the presence of a poet in a university literature department to that of a pig at a bacon festival.

"Creative writing departments are very small and therefore poetic work is not really valued in academia," says Paula Hughes, a poet and an academic at the University of Northumbria in northern England. "I've had two book launches in the last four years and only one colleague and her boyfriend came. I sometimes feel that universities are embarrassed about having a poet around."

For too long, poets and artists have been regarded as social misfits who must not be trusted, especially by the elite establishment, says Roshan Doug, a resident poet at UCE and a fellow of the Royal Society of Art. Senior management in universities, he suggests, pays lip service to a literary culture by occasionally appointing resident poets.

"It could be argued that poetry and higher education have as much in common as quantum physics has with bird-watching or stamp-collecting," he says. But, he adds, "If universities are to uphold their image of institutions that push back the borders of the real and imaginary worlds, then more and more of them will need to utilize the skills and inputs of resident poets to make the study of literature and the literary recording of human experience enjoyable pursuits worthy of the time and effort they impose."

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