<html aria-label="message body"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">On Editing the Oxford Junior Dictionary</font></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"><br>“A culture is no better than its woods.” – W.H. Auden</font></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">We went out to play.<br>We owned the afternoons.<br> Remove <em>acorn buttercup dandelion</em></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">spring’s pink lady’s slippers, the wood’s<br>dappled light in summer’s heat, autumn’s bittersweet<br>rampant at the margins, the silent intensity<br>of winter’s snow<br> Remove <em>heron newt otter</em></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">The playground swings are idle now, though<br>the climbing tree still stands, no children in its crown.<br>The woods, which once seemed to stretch forever,<br>just scar tissue on the disemboweled earth.<br> Remove <em>pasture willow fern</em></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">The woods, home to magical journeys,<br>gone, and children, in the glow of screens, dream<br>of other worlds than this one at their feet.<br>Kinship lost with the trees.<br> Add <em>MP3 player committee blog</em></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;">Wild time lost, we are adrift. The ballast<br>of belonging thrown overboard.<br>All life moving into exile.<br>We are in renamed territory.<br> Add <em>bullet-point celebrity cut-and-paste</em></font></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px;"><em><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"><br></font></em></p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 16px;"><font size="5" style="font-size: 22px;"><em><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- </em>Susan Lamont</font></p></div></body></html>