BOOK TALK: A Poem for Banned Books Week 2009

Here is a revised version of a poem that I wrote in 2007 when there was a big kerfuffle going on over The Higher Power of Lucky, the children's novel that had won the Newbery Medal. You see, Susan Patron, the author, used the word "scrotum" in her book. I'm posting the revised poem for Banned Books Week 2009 (September 26th-October 3rd). BTW, I’ve left off the final couplet that was included in the original poem: Who’s got a solution antidotal/For the current row o’er something scrotal?.


Book Talk
by Elaine Magliaro

Dressed in uniforms of blue,
The word police arrived at two.
With laser eyes, they scanned our pages
And locked our naughty words in cages.
Then up we cried: “You’ve taken text!
Will you remove our pictures next?”

“Your pictures?” one policeman said.
“We only take the stuff that’s read.
Your naughty words must be excised.
Let all your authors be advised
To watch their words when they compose
Their poetry…and all their prose.”

Warning given…the men in blue
Then turned to leave. They bid adieu.
We books now left with words deleted
Feel somehow, sadly, incompleted.



NOTE: I have a list of links for Banned Books Week 2009 over at my other blog, Wild Rose Reader.