Secondary Education
by Marco Katz Montiel / September 27th, 2026
Let’s give a big hand to the Taliban
For their great pedagogical breakthrough!
Their teen girls study as hard as they can,
Finishing all the books they get into.
Their methodology seems old-fashioned,
Building on an old trick never hidden,
Just a way of making kids impassioned
By making education forbidden.
Letters sent from an underground school show
No one there is Reviving Ophelia;
These girls have pride and want the world to know
They are equal to any from Delia.
While we treat our girls as secondary,
Their method is illocutionary.
See: “We visited a secret Afghan girls school. They surprised us with handwritten ‘letters to the world’” by Imtiaz Tyab and Ahmad Mukhtar, CBS News, 10 September 2026.
Marco Katz Montiel composes poetry and prose in Spanish, English, and musical notes. He went to college late, and then alienated one university by publishing about bigotry on campus and got kicked to the curb by two others for his union activities. Still, Marco managed to graduate and even publish a book on music and literature with Palgrave. His essays, poems, and stories appear in
Ploughshares,
Jerry Jazz Music,
English Studies in Latin America,
Copihue Poetry,
Camino Real,
WestWard Quarterly,
Lowestoft Chronicle,
Dissident Voice, and in the anthologies
Cartas de desamor y otras adicciones,
There’s No Place, and the
Capital City Press Anthology.
Read other articles by Marco Katz, or
visit Marco Katz's website.
This article was posted on Sunday, September 27th, 2026 at 8:00am and is filed under Poetry.
