Joseph Trapp (1679–1747) was an English clergyman, academic, poet and pamphleteer. His production as a younger man of occasional verse and dramas led to his appointment as the first Oxford Professor of Poetry in 1708. Later his High Church opinions established him in preferment and position. As a poet, he was not well thought of by contemporaries, with Jonathan Swift refusing a dinner in an unavailing attempt to avoid revising one of Trapp’s poems, and Abel Evans making an epigram on his blank verse translation of the Aeneid with a reminder of the commandment against murder.

The Professor of Poetry is an academic appointment at the University of Oxford. The chair was created in 1708 by an endowment from the estate of Henry Birkhead. The professorship carries an obligation to deliver an inaugural lecture; give one public lecture each term on a suitable literary subject; offer one additional event each term ; deliver the Creweian Oration at Encaenia every other year; each year, to be one of the judges for the Newdigate Prize, the Jon Stallworthy Prize, the Lord Alfred Douglas Prize and the Chancellor's English Essay Prize; every third year, to help judge the English poem on a sacred subject prize; and generally to encourage the art of poetry in the University.