Poetry and Censorship November 19, 2007
Posted by Matthew Woolums in 21st-Century, Opinion.trackback
A teacher librarian for a local school where I live recently made a very difficult decision. She put up a student poetry blog and the students wrote about subjects that were meaningful to them. Specifically, a couple of poems had to do with suicide and cutting.The building administration asked that the poems in question be removed to prevent other students from getting the wrong idea. Rather than compromise the integrity of the authors, she removed all of the poems and instead is using the opportunity to foster a discussion about authenticity and censorship. Her post is insightful and worth the visit. Below I’ve copied a section of questions to consider in shaping the dialogue.
- Would poems about suicide and cutting make other students more likely to engage in those behaviors?
- Would there be any benefit to allowing students to write about topics like cutting and suicide?
- Should there by any limitation to the content that can be on this blog? For example, would a racist poem or a poem about causing physical harm to others be acceptable?
- Who should decide what is and isn’t acceptable on this student poetry blog?
- To what extent should students have the right to freedom of speech?
- If you were a school administrator, would you err on the side of caution and student safety or freedom of expression?
The student comments are priceless, especially the one that says “poetry keeps me alive!” My own comment is copied below.
I can certainly understand being concerned for the safety and welfare of students, but I think there could have been a different approach. While some subjects are not ideal for an educational setting, I think the poems in question should probably be printed under one condition. It is important to know the state of mind of the authors. Sometimes writing about hurting yourself can be a cry for help. I’d want to make sure that the poets were okay and safe and received any help if they needed it.
The link to the poetry site has been removed because the site was pulled down.
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Hi Matthew. I’m honored to be in one of your posts.
I’m curious to know if you actually left that comment on the blog? It didn’t show up. Between 4:00pm and 5:00pm Google’s Blogger server was down a lot. One student had spent a lot of time writing a comment that never showed up.
I just wanted to let you know in case you thought I had deleted it. I would welcome it on there, actually.
I appreciate what you wrote about the author’s state of mind. I suggested to that we place the email of our psychologist and social worker on the blog along with links to suicide hot lines and prevention sites.