A teacher at South Windsor High School in Connecticut has been suspended after reading a poem to his Advanced Placement (AP) English class containing a graphic description of gay sex acts.
School district superintendent Kate Carter and some parents condemned the poem by Allen Ginsberg that was read by the unnamed teacher as “highly inappropriate,” according to WTNH News.
The teacher read Ginsberg’s 1968 poem titled “Please Master,” which can be read here (warning – graphic material).
The poem includes the lines: “please master can I gently take down your shorts,” and “please master can I have your thighs bare to my eyes.”
“I don’t understand how that actually got into a high school class,” one anonymous parent said. “I can understand parents being really upset about it.”
“My son is not in that class. If he was, I think I would be mortified,” the parent said. “It was extremely inappropriate.”
“I don’t feel that the content was appropriate whether it was a senior class or an honors class. It was a little bit much,” said another parent. “I’m not sure what the reasoning was behind reading that particular poem.”
“We take seriously the trust that parents place in teachers and administrators, and we do not tolerate the use of inappropriate materials in classroom settings,” said Carter in a statement.
In 1956, Ginsberg also penned the poem “America” in which he wrote, “America when will we end the human war? Go f*** yourself with your atom bomb.”
Ginsberg wrote about his membership in the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA), which he characterized as a mission to preserve “civil liberties,” in “Thoughts on NAMBLA” in 1994.
“One important function of NAMBLA is to keep track of bureaucratic manipulations of adolescents by police, FBI, media, and other agencies who handle such delicate issues with a meat ax,” he wrote.
At Truth Revolt, Ben Shapiro reports, “Ginsberg’s poetry has long been controversial, with one from 1957, Howl, at the center of an obscenity trial for its graphic content, including homosexual acts. Ten years before his death in 1997, Ginsberg penned Sphincter — an ode to his backside.”