The Hands Off Poetry petition against AQA's ban of Education for Leisure has now been signed by more than 100 people, including poets, students and many angry teachers.
Whether you like the poem or not, AQA should not treat literary texts and children's education with such contempt.

To sign the petition, click on the following link:
http://www.petitiononline.com/hdsoffp/petition.html

Excellent riposte by Carol Ann Duffy herself, Mrs Schofield's GCSE.
Mrs Schofield's response was to say she found Carol Ann Duffy 'a bit wierd'.
Should people with such narrow minds be trusted with examining children's education?

Mrs Schofield may not understand much about poetry, but she has no power to ban anything. The blame lies entirely with AQA. Rightly or wrongly, examination boards have been given the power effectively to decide the literary canon for secondary schools. Even if they have to follow government guidelines, they select the literary works.
They should take this responsibility a lot more seriously.

Everybody has different definitions about what is acceptable or not. So it must be said that there is nothing, language nor meaning in the poem that teenagers have not already been exposed to. Further, the banning of this poem will only serve to push people into finding out what the poem is and is about. It all seems like a wasteful own goal on AQA's part. Heck, there are much 'worse' pieces of literature that schools see as 'fit' for student eyes. Even the stuff that isn't that's what a library is for........Like I said seems like an own goal.

The petition has now been signed by 150 people, including teachers, students, poets and novelists. Many have left some great comments against AQA.
Although AQA banned the poem after just 3 people complained, we need more signatures.
To sign the petition, follow this link: http://www.petitiononline.com/hdsoffp/petition.html

I have signed the petition. The whole thing stinks of hypocrisy. I was raised a Christian, and the bible is chock full of violence, as are the works of Shakespeare; so should we ban them too? We have schools in Britain which are sponsored by the arms trade -how much violence is that promoting?