Doth Thou Talketh About My Mama? Oxford Poets Take Diss War Public

Every five years, The University of Oxford elects a new Professor of Poetry, and this election year, the campaigning has gotten a little out of hand in a seriously awesome way.

A little background info:

A far cry from your average university teaching job, The University of Oxford’s Professor of Poetry chair has some serious perks.

First off, you don’t really have to do much professing when you’re Oxford’s Prof. of Poetry. You’re only required to give one lecture per term. Also, you get a nice little chunk of change for your minimal effort (6,000 pounds or around $12,000).

And then there’s the prestige, a favorite of highbrow intellectuals with no interest in such plebeian pursuits as money and power. The Prof. of Poetry chair has existed for more than 300 years and has played host to the likes of W.H. Auden (“Funeral Blues,” “September 1, 1939”) and Seamus Heaney (winner of the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature).

With benefits like these on the line, is it any wonder that poets get a little rowdy in their pursuits of the position?

Case in point, a few of the candidates currently campaigning to be Oxford’s next Prof. of Poetry recently threw out etiquette out the window in favor of a down and dirty diss war.

It all started last week, when candidate Roger Lewis published an essay in The Telegraph that, for all intents and purposes, sought to define poetry. Here’s an excerpt:

The colour of Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes.
The tilt of Garbo’s face in profile.
The bend of Chaplin’s cane.
W.C. Fields’s juggling routines.

Seems harmless enough, right? Not to Lewis’ opponents, who apparently found the essay inflammatory, provoking and ultimately deserving of a reply.

Candidate Michael Horovitz responded first via a strongly (and of course beautifully) worded letter to The Telegraph‘s editor. Here’s a selection:

“Mr. Lewis highlights ‘the colour of Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes’… as evidence that he honours Herakleitos’s ‘what can be seen, what can be heard, what can be learned’. But is this claim not more emblematic of pseudointellectual chutzpah than Parnassian authority? Mr. Lewis could presumably spout the hind legs off a donkey about these subjects, but how does this qualify him…as the next Professor of Poetry?”

And then there’s candidate Michael George Gibson, who couldn’t stand to be on the outside of such a rousing round of defamation and so submitted his own thoughts (in the form of a limerick) to The Telegraph and The New York Times. This one rhymes!

That Ox.Prof.Po.Candidate, Roger,
Is a diss-all-his-rivals old codger
Whose Telegraph prose-hymn
Prosodically shows him
A ‘My Favourite-Things’ silly splodger.

And once Gibson was finished with Lewis, Horovitz came back for seconds, suggesting that Lewis be awarded, “a Services to Dumbing Down award rather than the Oxford Poetry Professorship he craves.”

The impertinence! Who knew poetry was such a dirty business?

Oxford is set to announce its new Professor of Poetry later today. Will Lewis brush his haters off in time to rally, or will the poet with the best diss take home the title? Hard to say, but hopefully one of these guys will put out a mixtape.

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.