From Invitations to the World by Richard Peck.
A poem about censorship.
This poem can be found on page 157 of the book.
It has no title.
Peck introduces it with these words.
The writer has to play all the parts, of course. We have to inhabit other people’s skins and search perfect strangers to find out who they are. In long nights after dark days, we even wonder what’s truly in the hearts and minds of our fellow adults who want to purify their communities, and rid them of us.
What are you trying to tell me
That I’m afraid to hear?
What is the witchcraft in your words
That strikes my soul with fear?
Why are you trying to tell me
Of the dangers I have to face
When I am hoping to live content,
Safe in the smallest place?
Why are you telling my children
Truths I don’t want them to know?
If they learn too much, they’ll leave me,
And I don’t want them to go.
What are those books on the library shelves?
I don’t read them, so I’m not sure,
But how do I know they aren’t evil,
Part of the devil’s lure?
I don’t need your words from the world
Or how reading can set me free.
I’m doing fine, just as I am . . .
I wonder what’s on TV?
April 10, 2008 at 9:17 pm
OMG! This poem says it for me. I’m sending it to my 17 year old. Some of her friends objected to reading The Grapes of Wrath for heavens sake because of the language that might hurt their fragile psyches. Her response? Don’t listen to music or watch TV then! She’s fabulous!
April 19, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Of course she is fabulous. She has a fabulous mom.