Rumple Oxbridge: “Liberal Verse is No Crime”

By John Frederick Kaufman on May 10, 2017

By Rumple Oxbridge, liberal lyricist

A journalist of the conservative type
has branded my satirical prayer “a crime
against the idea of verse.” Well, well. I

plead guilty in this literary sense:
my verse lacks the sort of literariness
that isn’t concerned with truth or nonsense.

In other words, it’s a verse of ideas
that doesn’t shy from meter or rhyme, the fear
of sounding like old Alexander

Pope. I’m just popping, Poping off against
all that’s illiberal and self-importantly dense . . .
It is no crime to give offense

to what offends morality and honest thought.
And does so with a style not overwrought
or dull and makes of journalism a sport.

And what better sport is there to do
than making fun of National Review?
It stands athwart Liberalism (and Poetry, too), yelling “Boo!”

William_F._Buckley,_Jr._with_President_Bush_2005

“President George W. Bush shakes hands with William F. Buckley, Jr., Thursday, Oct. 6, 2005 at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, to honor the 50th anniversary of National Review magazine, which was founded by Buckley, and to recognize Buckley’s upcoming 80th birthday. Buckley died on February 27, 2008, aged 82.” Photo By Paul Morse, White House Photo Office [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons