.

As Orwell Warned

The Right now gets censored to silence,
While schools and the media teach,
That speech from the Right equals violence,
And Left violence merely is speech.

.

.

“When I Was Your Age…”

Sometimes when my kids converse
__I simply have to say,
How often things were so much worse
__For us back in the day.

I think such words are true and wise
__But from my kids I see,
The same wide rolling of the eyes
__My parents got from me.

.

.

Appearances

His living room trophies are glorious,
From events where his teams reigned victorious,
At the tournaments memories were made in,
Of the games that he scarcely had played in.

.

.

Russel Winick recently started writing poetry after ending a long legal career. He resides in Naperville, Illinois.

NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets.

The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary.


Trending now:

29 Responses

  1. Cynthia Erlandson

    There’s quite a bit of wisdom here, especially in “As Orwell Warned”. I enjoyed the fun and humor in the other two, as well.

    Reply
  2. Paul Freeman

    ‘When I was your Age…’ reminds me of The ‘Four Yorkshiremen’ sketch, which I imagine couldn’t be performed today for fear of offending people from Yorkshire.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKHFZBUTA4k

    As far as I know, Orwell warned us of the dangers of totalitarianism, both left and right wing. What happened on the streets of Portland and what happened on Jan 6 were both violence, without the need to try excusing one or other of them.

    I must admit, I’ve visited people with trophy cabinets where some of the trophies seem rather dubious, as if the owner’s bought them and had them inscribed himself.

    Thanks for the reads, Russel.

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Thanks for your feedback Paul. The trophy owners you mention are far worse than the one I wrote about.

      Reply
  3. Julian D. Woodruff

    The 1st especially is very clever, a classic that should be anthologized and reanthologized.

    Reply
  4. Roy Eugene Peterson

    We have definitely reached the Orwellian world of which he wrote with forward vision. There is so much more that needs to be communicated these days to our children. Let them roll their eyes but take a stand. “Glorious trophies” with minimal participation is sad when such a person is asked to explain what they did and how well they performed. These are three fun and clever observations written as poems.

    Reply
  6. Joshua C. Frank

    The first is great! I agree it should be spread all around.

    Given the first, the second may need to be updated:

    Today’s world holds my kids in fetters—
    __I simply have to say,
    How often things were so much better
    __For us back in the day.

    Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        Even when we were all liberal, my parents both preferred the world in which they grew up over the world in which I grew up. They raised me with things (books, television, toys, games, etc.) from when they were children in addition to current things.

  7. Joseph S. Salemi

    Orwell began life as a left-wing socialist, but his views began to shift markedly after his experiences in the Spanish Civil War. He went there to fight fascism, but he was appalled at the totalitarian thinking and mind-control that the left always imposes on everyone in its power. He also loathed cocktail-party leftists (what the Germans called Salonkommunisten), and made fun of their silliness and fatuity. He got in trouble with leftists in England when he made disparaging and satiric comments about them in print.

    “Animal Farm” is an allegory of how leftist revolutions devolve into corruption and tyranny; and “1984” is a dystopian picture of what happens when leftists gain control of all the levers of power, and use them to force the population into slavery and groupthink.

    When I taught in the high school system, I was berated when I assigned these two novels in English classes. The left-liberal scum who ran the school told me that they were “right-wing propaganda,” and that using them was forbidden. Instead the insisted that I teach novels by Howard Fast, some Communist hack.

    Reply
    • Russel Winick

      Thank you, Sir, for this historical information, which you knew far better than I.

      Reply
    • Paul Freeman

      Ironically, in the 1990s, we were teaching Animal Farm in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe in the high schools.

      Reply
      • Joseph S. Salemi

        Maybe that dim-witted government didn’t catch the allegory.

      • Russel Winick

        Where I went to college in the ‘70s, there was a Zimbabwean chemistry professor and several Zimbabwean students. The election was soon to take place, and emotions ran high between the supporters of Mugabe, Nkomo, and Bishop Muzerewa (sp?). A good friend of mine was for Mugabe. She regretted that choice very quickly.

      • Paul Freeman

        I think you’ll find that some rebellious worker in the Ministry of Education put the book on the syllabus because higher up government officials were too busy feathering their nests and securing their government positions to notice. My students, at a mine school, easily saw the parallels.

  8. Adam Wasem

    Neat, clean, clear, tight, and near-perfectly symmetrical. I’d read your book of epigrams in a heartbeat.

    Reply
  9. Margaret Coats

    Russel, you created a clever classic epigram in “As Orwell Warned.” It does justice to Orwell and to logic while describing the current illogical situation.

    Reply
  10. C.B. Anderson

    A view being cynical in no way implies that the view is untrue or inaccurate.

    Reply
  11. Anna J. Arredondo

    Relevant and relatable as always, Russel. I always enjoy your little nuggets of insight.

    Reply
  12. David Whippman

    Thanks for these terse but witty and and perceptive pieces.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.