Been and gone Aug 4, 2009
She met the poet Cecil Day-Lewis in 1948 and the two began an affair. It was a complicated relationship, not least because Day-Lewis was not only married but also in an ongoing relationship with the novelist Rosamund Lehmann. (BBC News -- UK)
Darwinian Struggle: A Poet Felled by Scandal May 27, 2009
On May 16, Padel was named Oxford University's Professor of Poetry, following in the footsteps of such literary giants as Matthew Arnold, Cecil Day-Lewis, W.H. Auden, Robert Graves and Seamus Heaney. Yet even in this illustrious company, there was something that distinguished Padel from the crowd: she was the first woman to win election to the five-year post since its creation in 1708. (Time.com)
Woman joins that dread poets society May 4, 2009
Cecil Day-Lewis, on accepting the post in 1968, described it as the "kiss of death". A successor, Ted Hughes, suspected - on the basis of such ill-fashioned lines as "A helicopter snatched you up/The pilot, it was me" (composed to celebrate the nuptials of the Duke and Duchess of York) - that he had become a laughing stock. (Sydney Morning Herald -- Entertainment)
