At about the time I wrote Glebewise, the poem, I also wrote a short narrative poem entitled Radish about a peasant who kept the glebe fields of a medieval bishop.
I remember showing this narrative poem to one of my high school students. Today I marvel I took that risk given the realities of public school educators. I felt at the time that by my conduct in foisting the poem on a student with the intellect to understand it revealed questionable conduct on my part, and thereafter vowed never to share poems with any student again (I was a public school teacher and had no business sharing a position on the ecclesiastical conduct of the medieval church in Europe). I am reminded that our public schools are no place today for a liberal education - rather fettered mindcontrol or at least exclusionary content control.
There is no respect for the mind of child if you do not engage the child's mind in timely discussions of the import of historical human conduct. More about education and respect for intellectual growth of the child on another day and why Huckleberry Finn is not taught in today's public school curriculum.
[The poem Radish is available upon email request to this blogger.]
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