At Wyoming Valley West High School, students are petitioning the district to have a banned poem reinstated. What was the poem’s topic? Unbridled teenage sexuality? Gang warfare? Some sestina penned in homage to Kathy Acker? Nothing of the sort. The poem merely involved a teacher catching a kid without a hall pass.
[UPDATE: The school is based in Pennsylvania, not Wyoming. Sorry, folks. Between this and the Warhol screwup, I’m definitely slipping — for reasons I won’t go into here.]
© 2006, Edward Champion. All rights reserved.
Before you get too carried away casting aspersions upon the cumulative intelligence of the great state of Wyoming, perhaps you should note that Wyoming Valley West High School is, in fact, located in Plymouth, Pennsylvania.
I’ll not argue with your premise that censorship of the poem in question is a fine display of “stupidity.” I just want to make sure you were attributing stupidity points to the correct geographic recipient.
I’ve always loved the name of the nearby town Wyomissing, PA. It sounds so plaintive.
By the way, that’s John Updike country.