Showing posts with label Molly Guptill Manning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Molly Guptill Manning. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Never Mind the Guns and the Drugs; Seize the Books - poem


Lawrence Hall, HSG

Mhall46184@aol.com

 

Never Mind the Guns and the Drugs; Seize the Books

 

By 1938, the Nazis had banned eighteen categories of books,

4,175 titles, and the complete works of 565 authors…

 

-Molly Guptill Manning, When Books Went to War

 

Ideologues search libraries for dirty books

Because reading might give people ideas

And encourage them to think for themselves

Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas

 

Censors search Mary Poppins for dirty words

Because a wide vocabulary might give people ideas

And encourage them to think for themselves

Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas

 

In an era when even mere literacy is suspicious

Tyrants are threatened by words and ideas

 

 

How conservative and liberal book bans differ amid rise in literary restrictions - ABC News (go.com)

 

The Spread of Book Banning - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

 

Film censors aren’t protecting children from Mary Poppins – they’re protecting themselves (yahoo.com)

 

States Tell SCOTUS That Social Media Censors Conservatives : The NPR Politics Podcast : NPR

 

List of banned films - Wikipedia

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroeloffs/2023/12/22/police-officer-searches-middle-school-library-after-complaint-about-concerning-illustrations-in-lgbtq-book/

 

Someone is cutting down free little libraries in a Chicago suburb and police are searching for the suspect (msn.com)

 

Over 170 books banned from Florida school libraries following new education reform - CBS News

 

The police officer who searched for a book in a Great Barrington classroom also used a body camera. The ACLU has ‘deep concerns’ | South Berkshires | berkshireeagle.com

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