Education for leisure Carol Anne Duffy

Today I am going to kill something

Anything

I have had enough of being ignored and today

I am going to play God

It is an ordinary day,

a sort of grey with boredom stirring in the streets.

I squash a fly… against the window with my thumb.

We did that at school. Shakespeare.

It was in another language and now the fly is in another language.

I breathe out talent on the glass to write my name. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tu0n6oDTxi0

I am a genius.

I could be anything at all, with half the chance. But today I am going to change the world.

Something’s world.

The cat avoids me. The cat knows I am a genius, and has hidden itself.

I pour the goldfish down the bog. I pull the chain. I see that it is good.

The budgie is panicking.

Once a fortnight, I walk the two miles into town for signing on.

They don’t appreciate my autograph.

There is nothing left to kill.

I dial the radio and tell the man he’s talking to a superstar.

Who was that on the phone? He cuts me off

I get our bread-knife and go out.

The pavements glitter suddenly.

I touch your arm.

Consider Is this poem comical or terrifying? What is your view of the speaker in the poem? Do you assume that the speaker is a male or female? Are there any clues to support your assumption? Does the speaker’s gender make a difference? How many times does the speaker use a first-person pronoun? What does that reveal? Do you agree with the speaker’s claim that it is “an ordinary day?” What is your view of the speaker’s claim to “breathe out talent” and be a genius? Is the title appropriate? What does it mean?

Carol Ann Duffy: “Education for Leisure” In Her Own Words “EDUCATION FOR LEISURE is written in the voice of a teenaged boy who has left school and is on unemployment benefit. I do not specify in the poem that the speaker is male. This is because I was concerned to allow a voice to emerge from the poem, rather than a character. But I had a male voice in my head as I wrote the poem.”

“The poem was inspired by some visits I made as a poet to a run-down, underfunded comprehensive school in the East End of London. Many of the students there would leave school to face unemployment- often with few, if any, GCSEs. They would have a lot of leisure time ahead, but little education. So the title of the poem, EDUCATION FOR LEISURE, is ironic. (It may have even been a catchphrase of the time.).”

“The speaker in the poem is attention-seeking in a quite disturbed way and has started to become destructive- ultimately, of course, self-destructive. He is bored and frustrated, but feels that there is more in him- perhaps even talent- although no-one seems to recognise this and his education has not managed to bring it out. (“I am a genius./ I could be anything...”) He might also feel that other people- teachers, adults at the benefit office, a radio disc jockey, in different ways “play God” with his life. “

“So today he is going to take control- “today/ I am going to play God” “So today he is going to take control- “today/ I am going to play God”. Unfortunately, he does not know how to be creative- Shakespeare is “in another language”, for example- or when he tries to be creative he is blocked or thwarted- (“I dial the radio/ and tell the man he’s talking to a superstar./ He cuts me off...”). And so all his energy- which could and should be creative- becomes destructive. “

“He squashes a fly, then pours away the goldfish, considers harming the budgie or the cat, and the poem ends with him taking a knife from his family’s kitchen and going out to mug or stab someone in the street. The “glamour” of violence is something he knows from video and television. It is one way of being ‘famous’.”