As voting for Oxford University’s next Professor of Poetry gets underway, Dr Carmen Bugan writes a special PEN Atlas dispatch on the poetics of – and humanity in – the work of Nigerian Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka, who is one of five nominees in the running for the position.

Read ‘Wole Soyinka’s poetry: the insistence on liberty’ here.

Voting for the seat of Professor of Poetry at Oxford takes place until 17 June. The nominees are Simon Armitage, Ian Gregson, Seán Haldane, Wole Soyinka and AE Stallings. Everyone with an Oxford degree and members of the convocation (staff) can register to vote online on the University website by 8 June.