Monday, September 7, 2020

Not Burning the Books That Aren't There - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Not Burning the Books That Aren’t There

In Eastern Europe the [Nazis] burned…375 archives,
402 museums, 531 institutes, and 957 libraries.

-Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War, p. 13

In America books are neither burned
Nor banned - the State does not execute poets
Mostly because the mutual writers of grants
Move no one with their me-verse free-verse bleats

In America books are usually ignored
Robert Frost is a mystery to the president
James Baldwin means nothing to the DNC
And doesn’t Ernie Pyle play for the Jets?

Statues have been pulled down, each in its turn
As for the books – there aren’t many to burn

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