The Tolstoyans, the Afro-American slaves knew this.
You could be killed for teaching people to read and write.
I used to think the worst affliction was to be forbidden
pencil and paper.
Well, Ting Ling recited poems to prison walls
for years of the Cultural Revolution, and truly
the magic of written characters looms and dwindles,
shrinks small, gross swollen, depending on where you stand,
and what is in your hand, and who can read and why.
I think now the worst affliction is not
to know who you are or have been.
I have learned this in part from writers.
Reading and writing aren't sacred,
yet people have been killed as if they were.