I am the (mixed-race) mother of one of the kids from diverse backgrounds that Kate Clanchy nurtured into creating “sometimes luminous” poetry (The book that tore publishing apart: ‘Harm has been done, and now everyone’s afraid’, 18 June). Those kids’ poems were going to be published, but now won’t be, after Kate was cancelled. So, Tory MPs, you hate cancel culture – why aren’t you sticking up for Kate?
As a non-white person, I do understand how some of the adjectives in Kate’s memoir upset and infuriated the original complainants. However, I imagine that they thought they were just aiming ineffectual kicks at the plinth of an invulnerable establishment statue; I don’t think they expected to bring her crashing down and destroy her life.
I am glad that an independent publisher has bought the rights to Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me. It would be nice, though, if they could also buy the rights to the kids’ poems, and append them to the main text of the book, so that not everything Kate tried to do as regards improving social justice is lost.
Sushila Burgess
Oxford
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