A veteran teacher in Windsor, Connecticut found himself out in the cold this month after reading a poem by the American literary icon Allen Ginsberg.
South Windsor School District pushed David Olio into resigning after he read Ginsberg’s homoerotic poem, “Please, Master” in an AP English course full of 17- and 18-year-olds, the Daily Beast reported on Friday.
“One day after the class, Olio was placed on indefinite, unpaid leave by the district. Seventy-two hours later, the district began termination proceedings against him. Three weeks after that, he agreed to resign,” the Beast reported.
An excerpt from the disciplinary letter sent to Olio, who had reportedly been teaching for 19 years:
You violated the trust placed by the Board of Education in you as a teacher, you brought discredit upon the South Windsor Public Schools, you undermined public confidence and parent trust in you as a teacher, and you put the emotional health of some students at risk.
The Ginsberg incident didn’t make much of a splash until one student tried to bail on a test the next day, citing the previous reading of the poem as a harmful distraction. At that point, the story went viral and the school took action against Olio, according to the Beast.
Did the teacher wear a beret and play the bongos while reciting the poem? I hope so.
I’ll bet they have absolutely no problem with him teaching Walt Whitman, though.
last 6 lines…
Seems a bit much for high school without parental consent…
When I was in high school, Alan Ginsberg himself visited and read a poem.
(Stuyvesant, public high school in Manhattan, 1980s.)
Do you remember the poem he read?