The Oxford establishment candidate, Christopher Ricks, a man sometimes accused of loving the lyrics of Bob Dylan as fervently as he does the epics of John Milton, has become one of the few academics in the last half century to win the university's poetry professorship. He took the post, the most cherished of its kind after the poet laureateship, by 39 votes in a result declared on Saturday.

The appointment pays £5,427 a year, with £30 each for lectures given three times a year for a five-year tenure. Professor Ricks won 214 votes. Two of the poets in the race, England's Peter Porter and the Canadian classicist Anne Carson, took a respectable 175 votes and 105 votes. An able performance poet and bard of the soccer terraces, Ian McMillan, came bottom with 17, below prank candidate Mark Walker on 20.

Prof Ricks established his Oxford base as a young Milton scholar and fellow at Worcester College in the late 50s. Bookies' forecasts are often an unreliable guide to literary contests. But the best tip about Prof Ricks's strong chances turned out to be the collegiate flutters. Making him a 2/1 favourite, a Ladbrokes spokesman said: "The money we've seen on it suggests that the answer to this contest is not blowing in the wind."