Simon Armitage
Simon Armitage[1] CBE (born 1963) is an English poet, playwright and novelist. On 19 June 2015, Armitage was elected Oxford Professor of Poetry.[2]
Armitage gained only 1,221 votes in the election, in which only a tiny percentage of Oxford graduates took part, as it was so little publicized that 95% of them were not aware of it taking place. Most of the discussion turned on whether the voters should elect a black, homosexual or female candidate, not on the candidates' poetic merits.[3]
Armitage is a homosexual whose series of awards and posts coincides with a period during which the well-funded LGBT movement has exerted pressure to recognize, applaud and promote homosexual writers in the UK and elsewhere.
Armitage appeared on British TV on 19 December 2016 in the quiz program "University Challenge" in a team from Manchester University. He failed to answer simple questions about English literature, on the works of Doris Lessing, Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, Sir Thomas More's Utopia and William McGonagall, the Scottish author of doggerel verse. His team lost. The program was broadcast again on 11 December 2017. [4]
References
- ↑ Simon Robert ARMITAGE. Debretts.com. Retrieved on 22 September 2014.
- ↑ Flood, Alison (19 June 2015). Simon Armitage wins Oxford professor of poetry election. Retrieved on 19 June 2015.
- ↑ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11687586/simon-armitage-oxford-professor-of-poetry.html
- ↑ https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b086y3hp
