Nightmare of a Chair Search Committee.
How nice to get Dr Forter.
How nice indeed, my dear;
He writes for the Saturday papers,
He’s a Grade A mountaineer;
besides, as a sort of bonus,
he’d be away two thirds of the year.
What about this Ms Avaporto?
Is anyone pushing for her?
Avaporto, is that Italian?
O I don’t think there’s much to fear.
She comes with a reference from Billit.
Let’s wait and play it by ear.
Ralph had a letter from Harold.
He’s on leave, I think, in Trier;
There’s no-one in Europe. Of course not,
but Oxford is far too dear,
though that young woman at Merton
may bring out her book this year.
Do you think we could get an American?
Someone not too queer?
No, no I didn’t mean that. But someone
trained as a Conferenceer,
Someone from Princeton or Harvard
(Yale’s on the way out, I hear.)
And so on, and so on, and so on,
for more than nine-tenths of the year.
Vincent Buckley (1991)308