Unacceptable

Burn the books, the scandalous books!

Lock them away; they can’t be seen.

Put them in a dark box in the back of a truck,

Drive them far into the night.

 

We’ll get them the help that they need.

We’ll prod them with questions and offer them pills.

We’ll swarm to them, observe them, treat them:

We don’t know what else to do with them.

 

They’re only trouble makers after all,

Bursting our bubble of false security.

They’re a black spot in our imagined community,

Causing nothing but questions and worry.

 

We’ll sugar-coat as best we can,

We’ll tell them with our kindest smiles.

We don’t know what to do with them, but lock them up.

We just can’t stand to hear them cry.

Author's Note

I don't really like this one as much as some of my others. I seems a bit whiny to me. Any suggestions?

Reviews

[eversosweetly]

You've got a good idea going here. It isn't whiny. You just need to sort out where you're trying to go with it so that the message is more clear. There are mixed messages in it that can make it a little confusing. Maybe I'm not understanding something as I should?

In the first stanza, the speaker declares that the books should be burned, but the rest of the poem deviates from utterly destroying them to the exact opposite: helping them. Or questioned like a prisoner. Or offered pills like a mental patient. They are swarmed, observed, treated, and sugar-coated. What are they doing with the books? Burning them or helping them?

Your third stanza, I think, gets back to the original idea (burn them!) a little bit more. The books mess with the status quo, and "they" want to silence them--find them--lock them up--reform them...and release them again into the world, safely edited. That's the main idea I got from the poem, and I'd love to see what else you can do with it based on that theme.

I love the idea of personifying controversial books as a person who needs to be silenced and controlled in some way...captured, brainwashed, and released back into the population, no longer a threat. Like George Orwell's book "1984"...oooh. Which was a banned book, by the way. Happy Banned Book Week! lol. :D

[Dante Balsote]

A Suggestion to Molly


"Burn the books, the scandalous books!
Lock them away; not to be seen.
Put them in a dark box in the back of a truck,
Drive them far into the night.

We’ll get them the help that they need.
We’ll prod them with questions and offer them pills.
We’ll swarm to them, observe them, treat them:
We don’t know what else to do with them."

Who are "they" after all, bursting poetry
With a false sense of objectivity?
This is the black spot in an imagined community
Causing nothing but questions for worry.

We can't sugar-coat poetry, even we do the best we can,
No, no one can.

We may use the same words in different styles.
But we can't say a poem is poetry because it mention "smiles".

And where did the "books" go?

We don’t know what to do with these "they", so lock them up:
For in poetry, first we must ask,
Who are "they" that pertains to the task.

[bluessadmood]

But this is so lovely my friend..how i liked the idea..
burn those books ,they are nothing but trouble
since i got used to them my mind was never the same
they dont deserve to be among us they are like the plague
they say they do help,but we will give that help,away with them
questions we will give and maybe pills will help but not them
nothing but troubles they gave..did burst all the security of mind
spread worry all around,and brought confusion to already messed up minds
i liked this..but i hope you meant in in a different way..certainly some books
should not be handled by the ordinary people,too dangerous
but withpout them ,with all the mess and confusion they bring
we will stay in the dark..for their darkness brought that strong light
i really loved this ,great so many thoughts i see here
lovely write..

[marisa starkilicious]

Not whiny at all. Rather vicious, actually. And I like it. :) I especially liked the first stanza. Good job on this!

[David W Moore III]

Yes I see this as a statement on censoring (was there an incident that brought this up?) and yes yo go from burning to reforming, but I see that as the narrator not knowing what to do with them and running through the options. I like it as a rant of sorts. Complaining about some sort of censorship