Lawrence Hall
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A Child’s Garden of Worse(s)
Some poets wrote verses which were not meant
to charm the reader but to get them a Stalin prize.
-Yevtushenko,
A Precocious Autobiography, 1963
The children who are permitted to live
Are not permitted to read what they want
When they ask for adventures our censors give
Ideology, instead of a jaunt
The children who are not submissive to the code
Not following this week’s fashions in science
Or who presume to kick against the goad
Will be inclusively loved into compliance
And from the Hippocrene a taste, a drink?
Oh, no! Children are now forbidden to dream or think