By PIOnline Staff Writers: Charisse Lindsey, Safiya Mohamed, Jadyn Jacquez, and Teal Davis
Banned Books Week was launched by the American Library Association (ALA) in 1987 as a response to a growing number of challenges to books in bookstores, schools, and libraries. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom documented 1,247 demands to censor library books and resources in 2023. The number of titles targeted for censorship surged 65% in 2023 compared to 2022, reaching the highest levels ever documented. Titles representing the voices and lived experiences of LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC individuals made up 47% of those targeted in censorship attempts. To acknowledge Banned Books Week, the editorial staff at Poetry International have highlighted a series of poems that have been banned, but should instead be ‘freed between the lines.’
The novel SHOUT (2019) by Laurie Halse Anderson is a memoir in verse; it was written as a response to her work SPEAK (1999). SHOUT serves to be a voice for survivors of sexual assault. Anderson examines the role silence plays against the act of ‘speaking out,’ which is often experienced by sexual assault survivors. As expected the book contains language that may make some uncomfortable. The novel was banned across the country, as well as Anderson’s home state of Pennsylvania, in which she attended a Central Bucks School District board meeting in early March 2023 to rally against the district’s ban on “sexualized content” in school libraries.
The poem “chum”conveys the experience and abuse young girls face at the hands of young boys and the ways in which society turns their cheek and perpetuates a “boys will be boys” attitude. The poem, describing preteen boys as having “shark-toothed fingers / and gap-toothed smiles,” directly compares boys to sharks. As creatures that stalk, surround, and attack, the speaker depicts them to be malicious– ones who take joy in harassing (both physically and emotionally) the sweet girls who just so happen to be younger than them. The actual attack is not the worst part; the worst is the acknowledgment that the lifeguard, the person paid to protect and take care of those in the water, will never interfere because it’s not technically a matter of water safety. This poem highlights the danger young girls can be put in when boys aren’t held accountable for their actions. Anderson calls it “their baptism as bait,” which lets readers know that this is their initiation, the first of many similar occasions.
chum
Underwater, city
swimming pool
a shiver of slippery boys
eleven, twelve years old
with shark-toothed fingers
and gap-toothed smiles
isolate
the openhearted girls
eight, nine years old
tossed in like bloody
buckets of chum.
The boys circle, then frenzy-feed
crotch-grabbing, chest-pinching,
hate-spitting
the water afroth
with glee and destruction.
Girls stay in the shallows
after their baptism as bait,
that first painful lesson
in how lifeguards
look the other way.
Wislawa Szymborska is a Polish poet, essayist, and translator who resided in Poland for most of her life. Growing up, she managed to flee from the Polish War and continued her studies in underground classrooms which led to her eventually studying at Jagiellonian University in Krakow years later. This is where she studied Polish literature and sociology. She died on February 1, 2012 from lung cancer and left behind a series of unfinished poems, which were later translated. Prior to her death, she was awarded the 1996 Nobel Peace prize in literature and this brought her international recognition. In response to receiving this, she quotes, “…poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality.”
Combining succinct imagery with narrative precision, Szymborska explores themes such as consciousness, death, evolution, heartbreak, and life. In the poem, “Some People,” she explores the experience and mindset of a war-struck individual fleeing the life they know for something new. These passages were heartbreaking to read. The language Szymborska uses is so simple yet raw and perfectly captures the chaos and confusion that occurs when one is fleeing war. In the last stanza, Szymborska confronts the idea of the enemy. A sense of empathy is evoked and the individual fleeing only prays they’re able to make it out alive.
I believe this poem is banned because it discusses the reality of war. Szymborska’s first book, That’s What We Live For, was banned in 1949 due to its political content and seeming disloyalty to the Socialist Poland regime at the time. Due to this, it was withheld from publishing until 1952.
Some People
They leave behind some of their everything,
sown fields, some chickens, dogs,
mirrors in which fire now sees itself reflected.
On their backs are pitchers and bundles,
the emptier, the heavier from one day to the next.
Taking place stealthily is somebody’s stopping,
and in the commotion, somebody’s bread somebody’s snatching
and a dead child somebody’s shaking.
Something else is yet to happen, only where and what?
Someone will head towards them, only when and who,
in how many shapes and with what intentions?
Given a choice,
maybe he will choose not to be the enemy and
leave them with some kind of life.
Rupi Kaur describes Milk and Honey as a reflection of her troubles including femininity, race, sexuality, love, learning, and life. Kaur started writing in an attempt to articulate her trauma, having just left an abusive relationship. She initially tried submitting her poetry to literary journals, magazines, and anthologies with little success. However, when her book was republished by Andrews McMeel Publishing, this led to it gaining significant popularity with 2.5 copies sold by 2017. Much of Kaur’s criticism comes from people calling her poems “basic Tumblr posts.” However, when discussing deep themes such as sexual violence I think this judgment is unfair because while one person might find a poem of hers surface-level, another might read it and resonate because they’ve gone through something similar. As of 2023 the book was banned in 14 school districts across both Missouri and Utah. The Missouri law stipulates that any depiction or description of sexually explicit material, which includes sexual intercourse, genitalia, or “sadomasochistic abuse” is banned. It also makes it a misdemeanor for school officials (educators, librarians, student teachers, coaches) or any visitor to a school, to distribute material to students deemed “harmful to minors.”
In the poem I selected, she talks about how men view women as vessels for sex and she uses the metaphor to depict the body as a vacant inn. I think there are multiple layers to this poem because when people stay at hotels they go to take a break and unwind. Additionally, when they leave their rooms, they might leave them in shambles. This poem was most likely banned due to its sexual content.
you
have been
taught your legs
are a pitstop for men
that need a place to rest
a vacant body empty enough
for guests, but no one
ever comes and
is willing to
stay
Starting with the word “you” is intentional because it forces the reader to try to imagine what it would be like if people only wanted you for your body. Additionally, Kaur’s use of objectification illustrates how men fetishize the body parts of women. The poem uses the word pitstop to represent that women are disposable.
Story of the Great Sumac Tree
By Pavel Šrut from Paper Shoes
There was a man
A sumac grew rampant behind his house
His wife came and grabbed an ax
His son came and grabbed a shovel
They overcame the sumac
But not death
There was a man
He buried his wife and ax
He buried his son and shovel
He overcame death
But not the sumac
There was a Novak
A sumac grew rampant behind his house
Šrut was a Czech author and poet who lived as a 20-year old experiencing the Velvet Revolution of Czechoslovakia at the end of the Soviet invasion. With the beginning of the communist leadership came considerable censorship of published writing and free speech. Despite this, Šrut still managed to publish a collection of works six months after the revolution, before his works were banned. “Story of the Great Sumac Tree” is a part of Paper Shoes which is a collection of numerous works throughout the twenty years that Šrut’s work was unpublished, offering a unique insight behind the curtain of the communist rule. This piece has a fluidity caused by Šrut’s lack of punctuation that is disrupted by the shocking twists present in the narrative. “He buried his wife and ax/ He buried his son and shovel/ He overcame death/ But not the sumac.” His work speaks to the impacts of the environment on his subjects and draws Biblical imagery of betrayal and death. Within these religious connotations and themes of overcoming death, Šrut highlights the human condition.
The sumac tree gains its own role and character within the poem, not only outliving the people around it, but also seemingly having more power, autonomy, and control over the events of the piece. The Elm-leaved Sumac that grows in Czechoslovakia also builds upon the visuals of Šrut’s piece due to the bright red pigment it produces. Spices produced by many types of sumac’s dried fruit are associated with antioxidant benefits and disease prevention, however other types of sumac’s are poisonous. This duality furthers Šrut’s unpredictable poem which tears away at the associations of safety often attributed to familial systems.