Philip Larkin's refusal of Oxford poetry professor nomination discovered

In letter to colleague, poet writes that he dreads the post’s ‘sherry-drill with important people’ and that he would be ‘entirely unfitted’ for the job

A vision of the “hell on earth” that is a literary party and revulsion for “a lot of sherry-drill with important people” drove Philip Larkin to rule himself out of consideration as the Oxford professor of poetry, according to an unpublished letter recently discovered in a college safe.

As Oxford graduates prepare to vote for the next incumbent this June, with a spat breaking out over Wole Soyinka’s suitability for the post, the archivist at St Hugh’s College in Oxford has stumbled across a letter from Larkin declining a nomination.

Related: Wole Soyinka dismisses claims he is too grand and old for Oxford poetry chair

I could spend half my evenings, if I wanted,
Holding a glass of washing sherry, canted
Over to catch the drivel of some bitch
Who’s read nothing but Which

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