A prick named Willie

'Rhyme and punishment' - is what The Observer calls it, as Derek Walcott gives VS Naipaul a taste of his own medicine in verse. Before reading out his brand new poem, 'The Mongoose' at the Calabash Literary Festival in Jamaica, Walcott is reported to have told the audience, "I think you'll recognise Mr Naipaul... I'm going to be nasty." I wonder what 'Sir Vidia' would have thought of being called 'Mr'. From what Walcott has to say, it appears 'Mr' is the least of Naipaul's concerns, for Sir Vidia is indeed the 'Mongoose' of the poem.

Excerpt

The joy of supplements, his minstrel act
Delighting editors endorsing facts
Over fiction, tearing colleagues and betters
To pieces in the name of English letters
The feathers fly, the snow comes drifting down
The mongoose keeps its class act as a clown
It can do cartwheels of exaggeration
Mostly it snivels, proud of being Asian
Of being attached to nothing, race or nation
It would be just as if a corpse took pride in its decay
After its gift had died and off the page its biles exude the stench
of envy, "la pourriture" in French
cursed its first breath for being Trinidadian
then wrote the same piece for the English Guardian
Once he liked humans, how long ago this was
The mongoose wrote "A House for Mr Biswas"

For good measure, the poem also says of its subject:

"He doesn't like black men but he loves black cunt."

Ever wondered if Nobel laureates talked dirty? Wonder no more. VS Naipaul, according to his biographer, 'settles all his accounts'. All indications are he will fight back. For now, many a reader will take the view that Naipaul has been sniping away at Walcott for a long time. As The Observer concludes, Sir Vidia had it coming.