April Showers Bring...Banned Poems? - Natl Coalition Against Censorship

Updates and insights from NCAC's eNewsletter.

http://ncac.orghttp://ncac.org/blog/the-good-the-bad-and-the-banned/April is National Poetry Month — which makes it a perfect time to take a look at a few poems that have been banned throughout the ages. While the censors may not want you to indulge in such scandalous content, we insist that you shout these poems from the rooftops (or wherever you prefer to shout things)!

Allen Ginsberg – Howl (

Prompting sting operations, arrests and a landmark trial, Howl has faced more scrutiny than perhaps any other work of poetry. Understanding that any mainstream publishing company would have rejected it, Howl was published by fellow Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti (http://bannedart.umwblogs.org/art-2/dangerous-poets/ in 1956. Controversial lines — and there are many — include "America (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/jun/02/featuresreviews.guardianreview21 ... Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb," and "When I first got laid, HP graciously took my cherry... ".
's uncompromising language brought severe consequences, for the author and his publisher. The second edition of Howl was printed in England in 1957 — and U.S. Customs seized all 520 copies. In response, Ferlinghetti decided it would be safer to keep production in the U. S. After having another 2,500 copies printed, a sting (http://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/jun/02/featuresreviews.guardianreview21 operation was conducted in 1957 in Ferlinghetti’s City Lights Books by two officers from the Juvenile Bureau of the San Francisco Police Department. They arrested Ferlinghetti and the store’s manager and charged them with publishing and selling obscene works.

The famous People v. Ferlinghetti trial began in August. In October the trial ended with a positive verdict: The book had what judge Clayton Horn called "redeeming social importance" and thus was protected by the First Amendment. While it was ruled not “obscene (http://bannedart.umwblogs.org/art-2/dangerous-poets/ ,” 50 years later (http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Howl-too-hot-to-hear-2499509.php similar issues came up around the poem when a New York community radio station wrestled over whether or not to broadcast a reading of Howl. Believing they would receive fines from the FCC — up to $325,000 per offending word — the poem’s reading was made available online instead.

We believe Ferlinghetti (http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Howl-too-hot-to-hear-2499509.php said it best: "It's such a hypocritical concept of American culture in which children are regularly exposed to adult programming in the mass media, with subjects ranging from sexual to criminal to state-sponsored terrorism, while at the same time they are not allowed to hear poetry far less explicit."

Shel Silverstein – A Light in the Attic (
http://ncac.org/blog/the-good-the-bad-and-the-banned/
The 1981 collection A Light in the Attic is one of Shel Silverstein's most popular books. But not with everyone; due to several of the poems it contains, it has been challenged on numerous occasions. In 1985, it was banned at Cunningham Elementary School in Wisconsin because the (continue reading) (http://ncac.org/blog/the-good-the-bad-and-the-banned/#anchor