The Oxford Professor of Poetry holds a public lecture each term. The current Professor of Poetry is A.E.Stallings. The Professor of Poetry lectures were conceived in 1708 by Berkshire landowner Henry Birkhead and began after he bequeathed some money so it could be a valuable supplement to the curriculum. He believed ‘the reading of the ancient poets gave keenness and polish to the minds of young men as well as to the advancement of more serious literature both sacred and human’. The first poetry professor, Joseph Trapp, took as his subject poetry in general. He was mainly concerned with...