As I have remarked before, poetic brawls have sadly declined
I am sure we have seen what tends to get described as heated in-fighting in the poetic community before - last time they appointed an Oxford Professor of Poetry, and wasn't there some internal wrangle in the Poetry Society?
Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka hit back at claims by broadcaster Melvyn Bragg that he was too old and “grand” for the role at Oxford University.
Sophie Heawood has something of an insider's view on that world: Poetry: it’s more entertaining than anything Simon Cowell ever produced, and far more vicious.
But, honestly, what do they teach them in EngLit courses these days? It's all fluffy bunnies compared to Dryden's MacFlecknoe or Pope's The Dunciad, no? Or some of Dr Johnson wielding a mighty codfish at some of the lesser lights in his Lives of the Poets. Ben Jonson! Jonathan Swift!
And to bring the matter more up to date: Edith Sitwell! the Graves/Riding hit-squad!
Woez, woez, poets of this degenerate modern era can no longer manage a really flesh-peeling flyting.
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