TO BE OR NOT
(for Rajvi Glasbrook Carolyn Hitt Marjorie Sheen and Abbie Wightwick and all the children being denied the chance to study english/welsh literature at gcse level)
"you think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read."
James Baldwin
not Duffy Shakespeare Taliesin or Angelou
because you, you see, are in set two
so those words are not for you
for we need to prepare you for the workplace situation
cvs letters forms and basic comprehension
to make you ready
for zero hour contracts minimum wage
and strict regimentation
no time for Miller Sassoon or Ishiguro
oh no those words are not for you
because you. boys and girls are in set two
no room for character motivation, metaphor or Barrett Browning’s sonnets
why so astonished?
think of this as a mind colonic
just dot the i’s and fill in the gaps
know your place know your class
you’ll be surprised how quickly each lesson passes
as expression only distracts
and we cannot afford any cracks
so learn by rote and memorize the facts
all we are concerned about is how you can make a profit
what is more important, a dream. or a full wallet?
even though ‘ english literature remains a statutory requirement in the curriculum’ *
don’t fill your heads with literary nonsense
what matters is the a-c grade performance
achieving the bare minimum,
we are in the age of officialdom
not martyrdom,
and anyway, ‘the welsh government has never placed a statutory requirement on schools to enter learners for specific qualifications’*
so it shall be literature for those who will pass it
and language for those who are dull
and in the selection of the brightest
all poetic aspiration is culled
no chance to escape the margins
no colours but the teacher’s red pen
where the sun is merely a noun
and writing’s just a means to an end
And what of love?
Of Walcott’s mirror
What of doves?
Of Niemoller’s horror?
And What of the compass to this land
Of Hedd Wyn’s Gogledd
Clarke’s West
And Davies’ Bells of Rhymney
What of the
Caneuon fy nghwlad ?
How to be yourself
Beat bullies, accept others
and
navigate the world with truth and empathy?
When you are trapped in classrooms outwardly benign
where the bookshelves
gather dust not spines
a place of cv’s and full stops
and the application forms await the primark sweatshops
and
and i think of my own dear mother
reading bed time stories to me
and all the dead poets ‘ blood
spilled in their eloquent lonely pleas
for
love imagination and humanity
as Lorca Sexton
Saro Wiwa Plath and Larkin
now circle in skies so lost
for they have no place to alight on
as all literary dreams lay quashed
except for those select few at the top
five
** the clock really is striking thirteen
four
and the pupils are asleep in what had once been the gymnasium
three
and april truly is the cruellest month
two
that was me.that is alex and my three droogs
we all learnt to love big brother
and
one
i now know why the caged bird sings, sings sings…. **
zero
because
no Duffy Shakespeare Thomas Angelou or Wilde
for you boys and girls
as you are now in set five
we want you to exist and survive
not question and thrive
and those words
those worlds
will never
be yours
no matter how hard you try.
*extracts of an official letter from the office of education minister kirsty williams am
** based on the first and last words of life changing books and poems many pupils will now never read
1984 george orwell
the waste land t s eliot
the handmaid’s tale margaret atwood
caged bird maya angelou
clockwork orange anthony burgess
