Poem banned from schools over knife crime fears

Poem banned from schools over knife crime fears

"A poem taught to thousands of schoolchildren every year has been dropped amid fears it could fuel knife crime".

Education for Leisure

By Carol Ann Duffy

Today I am going to kill something. Anything.

I have had enough of being ignored and today

I am going to play God. It is an ordinary day,

a sort of grey with boredom stirring in the streets


I squash a fly against the window with my thumb.

we did that at school. Shakespeare. It was in

another language and now the fly is in another language.

I breathe out talent on the glass to write my name.



I am a genius. I could be anything at all, with half

the chance. But today I am going to change the world.

something’s world. The cat avoids me. The cat

knows I am a genius, and has hidden itself.



I pour the goldfish down the bog. I pull the chain.

I see that it is good. The budgie is panicking.

Once a fortnight, I walk the two miles into town

For signing on. They don’t appreciate my autograph.



There is nothing left to kill. I dial the radio

and tell the man he’s talking to a superstar.

he cuts me off. I get our bread-knife and go out.

the pavements glitter suddenly. I touch your arm.

I will take a stab in the dark that it was as a result of Frances Lawrence (the wife of murdered headmaster Philip Lawrence) lodging a complaint which forced the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA) to bow to pressure.

In any event, I feel it is an unreasonable fear of knife crime to blame either a poem or its author for knife crime. I am amazed that a Hull school tore the poem out of an anthology of poems. What message does this send to children, that vandalism or criminal damage is ok and so is censoring freedom of speech?