'Poem is anti-violence': Carol Ann Duffy

A violent poem has been dropped from an English GCSE syllabus due to fears about teenage knife crime.

The AQA exam board has withdrawn Education For Leisure by Carol Ann Duffy, which begins with the line: ‘Today I am going to kill something. Anything.’

It goes on describe the thoughts and actions of an individual who feels unappreciated and wants to ‘play God’.

The individual kills a fly, and then a goldfish. It ends with the person going outside with a bread knife and the ominous line ‘I touch your arm’.

The poem has been contained in an anthology for GCSE students since 2004, despite complaints from teachers.

A spokeswoman for the AQA said today the board had decided to withdraw the poem following a fresh complaint.

She said the poem had been a ‘popular choice’ but that they had decided to withdraw it against the specific background of ongoing fears about knife violence.

The spokeswoman said: ‘Education for Leisure has been particularly well received due to the nature of the debate it raises.

‘When taught sensitively it enables schools to explore the contemporary social context and the psychological context surrounding the narrator of the poem alongside its literary merits.’

She said the board was writing to schools advising them to destroy the anthology and says it will be sending out replacements that do not contain the poem.

The spokeswoman added: ‘The decision to withdraw the poem was not taken lightly and only after due consideration of the issues involved.

‘We believe the decision underlines the often difficult balance that exists between encouraging and facilitating young people to think critically about difficult but important topics and the need to do this in a way which is sensitive to social issues and public concern.’

Carol Ann Duffy’s literary agent, Peter Strauss, said the poem did not promote violence.

He told the BBC’s iPM programme: ‘This poem is pro-education and anti-violence. It is not glorifying violence in any way.

‘Carol Ann Duffy is a vocational poet for the young. She gets children fired up about language and verse. She talks to more schoolchildren than I’ve ever met. She’s encouraged more people to have a love of words and a love of education than anyone else I know.’

The anthology includes other works by Carol Ann Duffy, the Glaswegian poet and playwright, as well as classics by Yeats, Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Tennyson and Blake.