Has he got it wrong Miss?

At Grammar school we were taught to believe
everything a teacher said.
 
No room for doubt!
 
That scientific theories were facts.
 
That whilst there were other World religions,
‘Christianity is best’.
 
That there was only history
in the singular – British history!
 
No chance to question!
 
That the poets we studied meant this, or that
in the poems they had left behind.
Would the poets not be aware of other levels?
 
In English literature we were told that:
‘the stress goes here; the pause is there;’
that Shakespeare ‘means this!’
 
On a visit to the theatre with our teacher,
we listened to Sir Donald deliver that soliloquy.
 
He of course, knowing more than teacher,
delivered it in his way.
 
I nudged my teacher.
‘What is it Evans?’ she hissed
“Has he got it wrong Miss?”
 
She never forgave me.
 
 
 
     Sir Donald Wolfit, Shakespearean actor-manager
 

Dennis Evans

in collection, Occasional Poems, 2018, Celebration Press
ISBN 978-0-9531298-7-4