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Banned and Challenged: Restricting access to books in the U.S.

Perspective, ashley hope pérez: 'young people have a right' to stories that help them learn.

Ashley Hope Pérez

Author Ashley Hope Pérez wrote Out of Darkness, which is on the American Library Association's lists of most banned books. Kaz Fantone/NPR hide caption

Author Ashley Hope Pérez wrote Out of Darkness, which is on the American Library Association's lists of most banned books.

This essay by Ashley Hope Pérez is part of a series of interviews with — and essays by — authors who are finding their books being challenged and banned in the U.S.

For over a decade, I lived my professional dream. I spent my days teaching college literature courses and writing novels. I regularly visited schools as an author and got to meet teens who reminded me of the students I taught in Houston — the amazing humans who had first inspired me to write for young adults.

Then in 2021, my dream disintegrated into an author and educator's nightmare as my novel Out of Darkness became a target for politically motivated book bans across the country.

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Attacks unfolded, not just on my writing but also on young people's right to read it. Hate mail and threats overwhelmed the inboxes where I once had received invitations for author visits and appreciative notes from readers. At the beginning of 2021, Out of Darkness had been on library shelves for over five years without a single challenge or complaint. As we reach the end of 2022, it has been banned in at least 29 school districts across the country.

From the earliest stages of writing, I knew Out of Darkness would be difficult — for me, and for readers. I drew my inspiration for the novel from an actual school disaster: the 1937 New London school explosion that killed hundreds in an East Texas oil town just 20 minutes from my childhood home. This tragic but little-known historical event serves as the backdrop for a fictional star-crossed romance between a Black teenager and a young Latina who has just arrived in the area.

As I researched the novel, I imagined the explosion as its most devastating event. But to engage honestly with the realities of the time and of my characters' lives, I had to grapple with systemic racism, personal prejudice, sexual abuse and domestic violence. As I wrote, the teenagers' circumstances began to tighten, noose-like, around their lives and love, leading to still more tragedy. I sought to show the depths of harm inflicted on some in this country without sensationalizing that history. The book portrays friendship, loving family, community and healthy relationships because they, too, are part of the characters' world. Then, as now, young people struggle mightily for joy, love and dignity.

When Out of Darkness was first published, I braced for objections. Would readers recoil from the harshness of my characters' realities? Or would they recognize how the novel invites connections between those realities and an ongoing reckoning with racialized violence and police brutality? To my relief, the novel received glowing reviews, earned multiple literary awards, and was named to "best of the year" lists by Kirkus Reviews and School Library Journal . It appeared on reading lists across the country as a recommendation for ambitious young readers ready to face disquieting aspects of the American experience.

So it went until early 2021. In the wake of the 2020 presidential elections, right-wing groups pivoted from a national defeat to "local" issues. The latest wave of book banning exceeds anything ever documented by librarian or free-speech groups. The statistics for 2021, which represent only a fraction of actual removals, reflect a more than 600% increase in challenges and removals as compared to 2020. (See Everylibrary.org for a continually updated database of challenges and bans and PEN America's Banned in the USA reports for April 2022 and September 2022 for further context.)

These book bans do not reflect spontaneous parental concern. Instead, they are part of an orchestrated effort to sow suspicion of public schools as scarily "woke" and to signal opposition to certain identities and topics. Book banners often cite "sexually explicit content" as their reason for objecting to books in high schools. What distinguishes the targeted titles, though, is not their sexual content but that they overwhelmingly center the experiences of BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people. If you were to stack up all the books with sexual content in any library, the tallest stack by far would be about white, straight characters. Tellingly, those are not the books under attack. Claims about "sexual content" are a pretext for erasing the stories that tell Black, Latinx, queer and other non-dominant kids that they matter and belong. Beyond telegraphing disapproval, book bans serve the interests of groups that have long sought to dismantle public education and shut down conversations about important issues.

Debates about the suitability of reading materials in school are nothing new. These include past efforts by progressives to reorient language arts instruction. Concerns about racist language and portrayals might well lead communities to seek alternatives to the teaching of works like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . But de-emphasizing problematic classics does not generally entail removing the books from library collections. By contrast, in targeting high school libraries, conservative book banners seek to restrict what individual students may choose to read on their own , disregarding the judgment of school librarians who carefully select materials according to professional standards.

Rather than reading the books themselves, today's book banners rely instead on haphazard lists and talking points circulated online. Social media plays a central role in stoking the fires of censorship. Last year, a video of a woman ranting about a passage from Out of Darkness in a school board meeting went internationally viral. The woman's school board rant resulted in the removal of every copy of Out of Darkness from the district's libraries, triggered copycat performances, and fueled more efforts to ban my book.

Book banning poses a real professional and personal cost to authors and educators. For YA writers, losing access to school and library audiences can be career ending. And it is excruciating to watch people describe our life's work as "filth" or "garbage." We try to find creative ways to respond to the defamation, as I did in my own YouTube video . But there is no competing with the virality of outrage. Meanwhile, librarians and teachers face toxic work conditions that shift the focus from student learning to coping with harassment.

But book banning harms students, and their education, the most. Young people rely on school libraries for accurate information and for stories that broaden their understanding, offer hope and community, and speak honestly to challenges they face. As libraries become battlegrounds, teens notice which books, and which identities, are under attack. Those who share identities with targeted authors or characters receive a powerful message of exclusion: These books don't belong, and neither do you.

Back in 2004, my predominately Latinx high school students in Houston wanted — needed — books that reflected their lives and communities but few such books had been written. In the decades since, authors have worked hard to ensure greater inclusion and respect for the diversity of teen experiences. For students with fewer resources or difficult home situations, though, a book that isn't in the school library might as well not exist. Right-wing groups want to roll back the modest progress we've made, and they are winning.

These "wins" happen even without official bans. Formal censorship becomes unnecessary once bullying, threats and disruption shake educators' focus from students. The result is soft censorship . For example, a librarian reads an outstanding review of a book that would serve someone in their school, but they don't order it out of fear of controversy. This is the internalization of the banners' agenda. The effects of soft censorship are pervasive, pernicious and very difficult to document.

The needs of all students matter, not just those whose lives and identities line up with what book banners think is acceptable. Young people have a right to the resources and stories that help them mature, learn and understand their world in all its diversity. They need more opportunities, not fewer, to experience deep imaginative engagement and the empathy it inspires. We've had enough "banner" years. I hope 2023 returns the focus to young people and their right to read.

Ashley Hope Pérez, author of three novels for young adults, is a former high school English teacher and an assistant professor in the Department of Comparative Studies at The Ohio State University. Find her on Twitter and Instagram or LinkT .

What You Need to Know About the Book Bans Sweeping the US

What you need to know about the book bans sweeping the u.s., as school leaders pull more books off library shelves and curriculum lists amid a fraught culture war, we explore the impact, legal landscape and history of book censorship in schools..

• The American Library Association reported a record-breaking number of attempts to ban books in 2022— up 38 percent from the previous year. Most of the books pulled off shelves are “written by or about members of the LGBTQ+ community and people of color."
• U.S. school boards have broad discretion to control the material disseminated in their classrooms and libraries. Legal precedent as to how the First Amendment should be considered remains vague, with the Supreme Court last ruling on the issue in 1982.
• Battles to censor materials over social justice issues pose numerous implications for education while also mirroring other politically-motivated acts of censorship throughout history. 

Here are all of your questions about book bans answered by TC experts. 

Alex Eble, Assistant Professor of Economics and Education; Sonya Douglass, Professor of Education Leadership; Michael Rebell, Professor of Law and Educational Practice; and Ansley Erickson, Associate Professor of History and Education Policy. (Photos; TC Archives) 

How Do Book Bans Impact Students? 

Prior to the rise in bans, white male youth were already more likely to see themselves depicted in children’s books than their peers, despite research demonstrating how more culturally inclusive material can uplift all children, according to a study, forthcoming in the Quarterly Journal of Economics , from TC’s Alex Eble.  

“Books can change outcomes for students themselves when they see people who look like them represented,” explains the Associate Professor of Economics and Education. “What people see affects who they become, what they believe about themselves and also what they believe about others…Not having equitable representation robs people of seeing the full wealth of the future that we all can inhabit.” 

While books have stood in the crossfire of political battles throughout history, today’s most banned books address issues related to race, gender identity and sexuality — major flashpoints in the ongoing American culture war. But beyond limiting the scope of how students see themselves and their peers, what are the risks of limiting information access? 

The student plaintiffs in Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico (1982) march in protest of the Long Island school district's removal of titles such as Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. While the district would ultimately return the banned books to its shelves, the Supreme Court's ultimate ruling largely allowed school leaders to maintain discretion over information access. (Photo credit: unknown) 

“[Book bans] diminish the quality of education students have access to and restrict their exposure to important perspectives that form the fabric of a culturally pluralist society like the United States,” explains TC’s Sonya Douglas s, Professor of Education Leadership. “It's a battle over the soul of the country in many ways; it's about what we teach young people about our country, what we determine to be the truth, and what we believe should be included in the curriculum they're receiving. There's a lot at stake there.” 

Material stripped from libraries and curriculum include works written by Black authors that discuss police brutality, the history of slavery in the U.S. and other issues. As such, Black students are among those who may be most affected by bans across the country, but — in Douglass’ view — this is simply one of the more recent disappointments in a long history of Black communities being let down by public education — chronicled in her 2020 book, and further supported by a 2021 study from Douglass’ Black Education Research Center that revealed how Black families lost trust in schools following the pandemic response and murder of George Floyd.

In that historical and cultural context — even as scholars like Douglass work to implement Black studies curriculums — the failure of schools to properly integrate Black experiences into the curriculum remains vast. 

“We want to make sure that children learn the truth, and that we give them the capacity to handle truths that may be uncomfortable and difficult,” says Douglass, citing Germany as an example of a nation that has prioritized curriculum that highlights its own injustices, such as the Holocaust. “This moment again requires us to take stock of the fact that racism and bigotry still are a challenging part of American life. When we better understand that history, when we see the patterns, when we recognize the source of those issues, we can then do something about it.” 

Beginning in 1933, members of Hitler Youth regularly burned books written by prominent Jewish, liberal, and leftist writers. (Photo: World History Archive / Alamy Stock Photo, dated 1938) 

Why Is Banning Books Legal? 

While legal battles over book censorship in schools consistently unfold at local levels, the wave of book bans across the U.S. surfaces a critical question: why hasn’t the United States had more definitive legal closure on this issue? 

In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a noncommittal ruling that continues to keep school and library books in the political crosshairs more than 40 years later. In Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico (1982), the Court deemed that “local school boards have broad discretion in the management of school affairs” and that discretion “must be exercised in a manner that comports with the transcendent imperatives of the First Amendment.” 

But what does this mean in practice? In these kinds of cases, the application of the First Amendment hinges on the existence of evidence that books are banned for political reasons and violate freedom of expression. However, without more explicit guidance, school boards often make decisions that prioritize “community values” first and access to information second. 

While today's recent book bans most frequently include topics related to racial justice and gender identity (pictured above), other frequently targeted titles include Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close , The Kite Runner and The Handmaid's Tale . (Cover images courtesy of: Viking Books, Sourcebooks Fire, Balzer + Bray, Oni Press, Random House ‎ and Farrar, Straus and Giroux). 

“America traditionally has prided itself on local control of education — the fact that we have active citizen and parental involvement in school board issues, including curriculum,” explains TC’s Michael Rebell , Professor of Law and Educational Practice. “We have, whether you want to call it a clash or a balancing, of two legal considerations here: the ability of children to freely learn what they need to learn to be able to exercise their constitutional rights, and this traditional right of the school authorities to determine what the curriculum is.” 

So would students benefit from more national and uniform legal guidance on book banning? In this political climate, Rebell attests, the risks very well might outweigh the potential rewards. 

“Your local institutions are —in theory — protecting the values you believe in. And if somebody in Washington were going to say that we couldn't have books that talk about transgender rights and things in New York libraries, we'd go crazy, right?” said Rebell, who leads the Center for Educational Equity . “So I can't imagine that in this polarized environment, people would be in favor of federal law, whatever it said.” 

Why Do Waves of Book Bans Keep Happening?

Historians date censorship back all the way to the earliest appearance of written materials. Ancient Chinese emperor Shih Huang Ti began eliminating historical texts in 259 B.C., and in 35 A.D., Roman emperor Caligula objected to the ideals of Greek freedom depicted in The Odyssey . In numerous waves of censorship since then, book bans have consistently manifested the struggle for political control. 

“We have to think about [the current bans] as part of a longer pattern of fights over what is in curriculum and what is kept out of it,” explains TC’s Ansley Erickson , Associate Professor of History and Education Policy, who regularly prepares local teachers on how to integrate Harlem history into social studies curriculum. 

“The United States’ history, since its inception, is full of uses of curriculum to shape politics, the economy and the culture,” says Erickson. “This is a really dramatic moment, but the curriculum has always been political, and people in power have always been using it to emphasize their power. And historically marginalized groups have always challenged that power.” 

One example: when Latinx students were forbidden from speaking Spanish in their Southwest schools throughout the 20th century, they worked to maintain their traditions and culture at home. 

“These bans really matter, but one of the ways we can imagine a response is by looking back at how people created spaces for what wasn’t given room for in the classroom,” Erickson says. 

What Could Happen Next?

American schools stand at a critical inflection point, and amid this heated debate, Rebell sees civil discourse at school board meetings as a paramount starting point for any sort of resolution. “This mounting crisis can serve as a motivator to bring people together to try to deal with our differences in respectful ways and to see how much common ground can be found on the importance of exposing all of our students to a broad range of ideas and experiences,” says Rebell. “Carve-outs can also be found for allowing parents who feel really strongly that certain content is inconsistent with their religious or other values to exempt their children from certain content without limiting the options for other children.”

But students, families and educators also have the opportunity to speak out, explains Douglass, who expressed concern for how her own daughter is affected by book bans. 

“I’d like to see a groundswell movement to reclaim the nation's commitment to education — to recognize that we're experiencing growing pains and changes in terms of what we stand for; and whether or not we want to live up to the democratic ideal of freedom of speech; different ideas in the marketplace, and a commitment to civics education and political participation,” says Douglass. 

As publishers and librarians file lawsuits to push back, students are also mobilizing to protest bans — from Texas to western New York and elsewhere. But as more local battles unfold, bigger issues remain unsolved. 

“We need to have a conversation as a nation about healing; about being able to confront the past; about receiving an apology and beginning that process of reconciliation,” says Douglass. “Until we tackle that head on, we'll continue to have these types of battles.” 

— Morgan Gilbard

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the speaker to whom they are attributed. They do not necessarily reflect the views of the faculty, administration, staff or Trustees either of Teachers College or of Columbia University.

Tags: Views on the News Education Policy K-12 Education Social Justice

Programs: Economics and Education Education Leadership History and Education

Departments: Education Policy & Social Analysis

Published Wednesday, Sep 6, 2023

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Box: 306 Phone: (212) 678-3231 Email: views@tc.columbia.edu

What Should We Really Make of Book Bans?

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In recent years, book bans have soared in schools, reaching an all-time high in fall 2022 . That’s according to PEN America, a nonprofit that uses media reports, publicly available documents, and school district meeting minutes to track bans. So, just how significant are these challenges to the literature students can access in school ( or even in public libraries )?

Last year, Jill DeTemple, a religious-studies professor at Southern Methodist University, argued in Education Week Opinion that we’re having the wrong conversation about book removals—one that sets teachers up to fail: “In talking about lists of books, we’re missing the real questions: What do we value about education? How can we equip teachers, administrators, school boards, and librarians to support those values in the work that they do?” In her opinion essay, “ Let’s Build Trust Instead of Banning Books ,” she lays out some concrete steps for how to have those values-based civic and classroom conversations.

More recently, the American Enterprise Institute’s Max Eden and Heritage Foundation’s Jay P. Greene took to the EdWeek’s opinion pages to offer their own take on the conversation : “that most ‘banned’ books aren’t really banned, and that when they are, it’s mostly reasonable.” In their own research comparing 2,532 instances of banned books identified by PEN America against school library catalogs, they report that nearly three quarters of the books identified as banned were still accessible to students in school libraries.

The books that were removed, they argue, were largely done so in response to reasonable complaints over sexually explicit material. And here’s one final objection to how book removals are represented: “Contrary to the popular narrative that book bans target LGBTQ+ content, half of these books depict explicit heterosexual material.”

In her opinion essay “ Book Bans? My School Doesn’t Even Have a Library ,” Lydia Kulina-Washburn is also leery of tidy political narratives that inflate the significance of book bans, though her exact concern takes a different shape:

“At face value, the national debates over book banning may appear to be a tension between the right and left,” wrote the Philadelphia public school teacher last year. “However, a closer look at the conflict reveals the inequity that has long defined the educational landscape. Politicians, families, and policymakers who argue the finer points of book selection in schools are ignoring the low-income schools in their states that don’t have adequate literary resources.”

But not all Opinion contributors primarily see these bans as distractions from more important conversations. In July, Tyrone C. Howard, a professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the president of the American Educational Research Association, asked “ Whose Life Experiences Are Being Disappeared by Book Banning? ” Last February, EdWeek Opinion blogger Peter DeWitt, was unequivocal in his assessment of what’s fueling this trend, arguing that “ Banning Books Is Not About Protecting Children. It’s About Discrimination Against Others .”

The number of books being challenged in schools may be on the rise, but the debate is hardly new. For as long as Education Week has been in print, we’ve been covering controversies over what belongs in school libraries and reading lists—and who gets to decide. Take, for instance, this opinion essay from a specialist in teacher training back in 1990.

Decrying the removal of a book focused on slavery in his district after a parent complaint about its racist language, Joseph A. Hawkins recounted the visit to a slave castle in West Africa that solidified his philosophy for teaching his own children the horrors their ancestors endured during slavery. “I can’t think of any better protection, any better weapon, to ensure that slavery never happens again than for my children to read realistic material about slavery and be exposed to its racist language,” he wrote.

His advice for his fellow educators was just as firm: “I wish educators would stop running away from their responsibilities. Stop taking the road of least resistance. Stop hiding every time a parent complains. Stop giving in.”

The challenge of balancing parent concerns about “age appropriateness” against the imperative of preparing students to be informed citizens is still on the minds of many educators today. And for some of them, the question is not just academic. Teacher Sarah Bonner found herself driven out of the classroom by criticism over her inclusion of Juno Dawson’s young adult This Book Is Gay in a classroom activity exploring protest art. Within days of the activity, a parent had contacted a conservative local radio news station, setting off a media firestorm in her small Illinois town. By the time someone filed a police report against her for “child endangerment” later that week, Bonner recounts in an emotional essay , she knew she had to leave her classroom.

Despite the upheaval, Bonner stands by her professional decisionmaking, offering a conclusion that mirrors Hawkins’ 33-year-old call to action. “Having Dawson’s book in my classroom is a choice I would make over and over again,” Bonner wrote, “If I were a student in the LGBTQ+ community witnessing this outcry, I would feel unsafe, fearing that I could be the next target. All students need reassurance that they are supported and protected.”

Such curricular decisionmaking should be left to the professionals, argues English/language arts instructional specialist Miriam Plotinsky. “Examining texts for their appropriateness is not a job that noneducators are trained to do,” she wrote last year , as the national debate over censorship resurged with the news that a Tennessee district banned the graphic novel Maus just days before Holocaust Remembrance Day.

Instead of trying to make learning frictionless for students, Plotinsky challenged adults to address our own discomfort with exposing students to hard truths about our shared history.

And what do students themselves have to say about book bans? Most of them—57 percent—don’t even notice, said school library employees in a recent national survey from the EdWeek Research Center . A third of students seem to get more interested in reading the book, while only 1 percent support the ban.

What’s the view on controversial books from your district?

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Home » Articles » Topic » Issues » Issues Related to Speech, Press, Assembly, or Petition » Book Banning

Book Banning

Written by Susan L. Webb, published on August 8, 2023 , last updated on April 30, 2024

Book banning, the most widespread form of censorship, occurs when private individuals, government officials or organizations remove books from libraries, school reading lists or bookstore shelves because they object to their content, ideas or themes. In this photo, Gail Sheehy, author of "Passages," reads during the "First Banned Books Read Out" in New York, April 1, 1982. The rally protested censorship by school and public libraries of certain books under pressure from right wing religious groups. (AP Photo/Carlos Rene Perez)

Book banning, a form of  censorship , occurs when private individuals, government officials or organizations remove books from libraries , school reading lists or bookstore shelves because they object to their content, ideas or themes. Those advocating a ban complain typically that the book in question contains graphic violence, expresses disrespect for parents and family, is sexually explicit, exalts evil, lacks literary merit, is unsuitable for a particular age group, or includes offensive language. Other complaints have been that the book is written by or deals with sexual orientation or gay issues or brings up topics like slavery that might make individuals uncomfortable.

Children's literature is top target of book bans

Book banning is the most widespread form of censorship in the United States, with children’s literature being the primary target. Advocates for banning a book or certain books fear that children will be swayed by its contents, which they regard as potentially dangerous. They commonly fear that these publications will present ideas, raise questions and incite critical inquiry among children that parents, political groups, or religious organizations are not ready to address or that they find inappropriate.

Most challenges and bans prior to the 1970s focused primarily on  obscenity and explicit sexuality. Common targets included D. H. Lawrence’s "Lady Chatterly’s Lover "  and James Joyce’s " Ulysses ." In the late 1970s, attacks were launched on ideologies expressed in books.

Surge to remove books from school libraries arises again in 2020s

To counter charges of censorship, opponents of publications sometimes use the tactic of restricting access rather than calling for the physical removal of books. Opponents of bans argue that by restricting information and discouraging freedom of thought, censors undermine one of the primary functions of education: teaching students how to think for themselves. In this photo, author Kurt Vonnegut Jr. speaks to reporters on a federal court ruling calling for a trial to determine if a Long Island school board can ban a number of books, including his “Slaughterhouse Five." (AP Photo)

In September 1990, the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression  declared the First Amendment to be “in perilous condition across the nation” based on the results of a comprehensive survey on free expression. Even literary classics, including Mark Twain’s  " Adventures of Huckleberry Finn " and Maya Angelou’s "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," were targeted. Often, the complaints arose from individual parents or school board members. At other times, however, the pressure to censor came from such public interest groups as the Moral Majority.

A new surge in book banning have arisen in recent years, with 4,349 recorded instances of book bans from July through December of 2023 (Blair 2024). Most book challenges have come from the ideological right, with Moms for Liberty being particularly active in challenging books (Alter 2024). Often such organizations challenge multiple books at a time. Depending on the state, librarians might have to read and respond to challenges to each book, although some might decide that it is simply easier to remove books. When such books are challenged in public meetings, those opposed to a book may cite isolated lurid passages that may or not be representative of the content of the book as a whole. 

Although challenges have occurred throughout the nation, a large majority of such challenges have been concentrated in Texas and Florida. Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, gained political notoriety with his “Don’t Say Gay Bill” restricting teaching about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grades. He also is known for his challenge to accepting advanced credit for African American history absent certain changes in the offering, and by his attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts. 

Similarly, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas supported and signed a bill in 2023 that banned books that were sexually explicit. One historian has identified laws that seek to suppress information about slavery as being based on the notion (often attributed to liberals) of “fragilism,” or the fear of “extreme sensitivity among the children they aim to protect” (Holton 2024, 202).

Censorship — the suppression of ideas and information — can occur at any stage or level of publication, distribution, or institutional control. Some pressure groups claim that the public funding of most schools and libraries makes community censorship of their holdings legitimate.

To counter charges of censorship, opponents of publications sometimes use the tactic of restricting access rather than calling for the physical removal of books. Opponents of bans argue that by restricting information and discouraging freedom of thought, censors undermine one of the primary functions of education: teaching students how to think for themselves. Such actions, assert free speech proponents, endanger tolerance, free expression, and democracy.

Community standards may be taken into account in book banning

Although censorship violates the First Amendment right to freedom of speech, some limitations are constitutionally permissible. The courts have told public officials at all levels that they may take  community standards  into account when deciding whether materials are obscene or pornographic and thus subject to censor.

They cannot, however, censor publications by generally accepted authors — such as Mark Twain, for example, J. K. Rowling, R. L. Stine, Judy Blume, or Robert Cormier — in order to placate a small segment of the community. Cormier’s  "Chocolate War " was one of the American Library Association’s Top 10 Banned Books for 2005 and 2006.

Those who oppose book banning emphasize that the First Amendment protects rights of students to receive ideas. The Supreme Court in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico (1982) ruled 5-4 that public schools can bar books that are “pervasively vulgar” or not right for the curriculum, but they cannot remove books “simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books.” In this 2007 photo, Makenzie Hatfield, a student at George Washington high school in West Virginia, holds books by author Pat Conroy that were removed English classes after parents of two students complained about their depictions of violence, suicide and sexual assault. (AP Photo/Jeff Gentner)

Opponents of removing books from schools emphasize student rights

Those who advocate removing books from school libraries often focus on parental rights. This becomes problematic, however, when parents of one child seek to prescribe what is appropriate for other children or when public library patrons who do not care to check out a book seeks to deny access to those who do. 

Those who oppose book banning emphasize that the First Amendment protects  student rights to receive information and express ideas, an idea that was highlighted in Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), when the Supreme Court recognized the right of students to wear black armbands in protest of the Vietnam War. 

In the one case to reach the Supreme Court over removing books from school libraries, Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico  (1982) the court ruled 5-4 that public schools can bar books that are “pervasively vulgar” or not right for the curriculum. But consistent with other rulings related to content discrimination , they cannot remove books “simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books.” The Supreme Court's decision was, however, narrow, applying only to the removal of books from school library shelves.

Courts more likely to allow limits on age-appropriate material

It is important to recognize that courts are more likely to accept rules limiting school libraries to age-appropriate materials than they are to accept broad bans in public libraries that serve adults. As a practical matter, it might also be worth noting that both children and adults likely have far greater access to controversial materials through online sources than they do through public libraries. 

The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom documents censorship incidents around the country and suggests strategies for dealing with them. Each September, the  American Library Association , the American Booksellers Association, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, the Association of American Publishers, and the National Association of College Stores sponsor  Banned Books Week  — Celebrating the Freedom to Read.

Designed to “emphasize that imposing information restraints on a free people is far more dangerous than any ideas that may be expressed in that information,” the week highlights banned works, encourages citizens to explore new ideas, and provides a variety of materials to promote free speech events.

The American Library Association publishes the bimonthly  Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom,  which provides information on censorship, as well as an annual annotated list of books and other materials that have been censored.

Current laws on removing books may be challenged as too vague

In some cases, movements to ban books have stimulated counter movements to preserve access to them. Many of the current laws outlining procedures for banning books are subject to challenge for being overly vague — many, for example, use the term “obscenity” in a much broader fashion than the Supreme Court has recognized in Miller v. California (1973) — or for being overly broad or for having a chilling effect on other publications. Some proposed laws, for example, could be interpreted as allowing for the removal of medical books, or even dictionaries, that might contain depictions, definitions, or descriptions of sexual organs or conditions.

In other cases, like licensing laws that have been struck down, book banning laws may vest undue discretion in public officials. Still other laws, especially those seeking to restrain exposure to discussions of slavery or other historical issues, will likely fail the test of content neutrality . Librarians who face criminal penalties or loss of jobs for failing to remove books, might further be able to raise issues of fair notice and due process.

This article was originally published in 2009 and updated in April 2024 by John R. Vile, a professor of political science and dean of the Honors College at Middle Tennessee State University. Susan Webb was an adjunct librarian at Southeastern Oklahoma State University.

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A Case for Reading - Examining Challenged and Banned Books

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Any work is potentially open to attack by someone, somewhere, sometime, for some reason. This lesson introduces students to censorship and how challenges to books occur. They are then invited to read challenged or banned books from the American Library Association's list of the most frequently challenged books . Students decide for themselves what should be done with these books at their school by writing a persuasive essay explaining their perspectives. Students share their pieces with the rest of the class, and as an extension activity, can share their essays with teachers, librarians, and others in their school.

Featured Resources

T-Chart Printout : This printable sheet allows students to keep notes on parts of books that they believe might be challenged, as well as supporting reasons. Persuasive Writing Rubric : Use this rubric to evaluate the organization, conventions, goal, delivery, and mechanics of students' persuasive writing. The rubric can be adapted for any persuasive essay. Persuasion Map : Use this online tool to map out and print your persuasive argument. Included are spaces to map out your thesis, three reasons, and supporting details.

From Theory to Practice

There are times that the books that are part of our curriculum are found to be questionable or offensive by other groups. Should teachers stop using those texts? Should the books be banned from schools? No! "Censorship leaves students with an inadequate and distorted picture of the ideals, values, and problems of their culture. Partly because of censorship or the fear of censorship, many writers are ignored or inadequately represented in the public schools, and many are represented in anthologies not by their best work but by their ‘safest' or ‘least offensive' work," as stated in the NCTE Guideline. What then should the English teacher do? "Freedom of inquiry is essential to education in a democracy. To establish conditions essential for freedom, teachers and administrators need to work together. The community that entrusts students to the care of an English teacher should also trust that teacher to exercise professional judgment in selecting or recommending books. The English teacher can be free to teach literature, and students can be free to read whatever they wish only if informed and vigilant groups, within the profession and without, unite in resisting unfair pressures." This is the Students' Right to Read. Further Reading

Common Core Standards

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

State Standards

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

• 1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
• 2. Students read a wide range of literature from many periods in many genres to build an understanding of the many dimensions (e.g., philosophical, ethical, aesthetic) of human experience.
• 3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).
• 4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
• 5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
• 6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.
• 8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
• 11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.
• 12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Materials and Technology

• Selected books as examples (from the most frequently challenged books list)
• Example Family Letter
• Persuasion Map
• Book Challenge Investigation Bookmarks
• Persuasive Writing Rubric

Preparation

• Because this lesson requires that students read a book from the ALA Challenged Book list, it’s a good idea to notify families prior to starting the assignment. See the example family letter for ideas on how to notify families.
• Bookmark the websites listed as resources to refer to throughout the lesson.
• Compile grade-appropriate books for students to explore using the Challenged Children's Books list .  Talk to your librarian or school media specialist about creating a resource collection for students to use in your classroom or in the library.
• Copy T-Charts and/or bookmarks for students to document passages as they read.
• Test the Persuasion Map on your computers to familiarize yourself with the tool.

Student Objectives

Students will:

• be exposed to the issues of censorship, challenged, or banned books.
• examine issues of censorship as it relates to a specific literature title.
• critically evaluate books based on relevancy, biases, and errors.
• develop and support a position on a particular book by writing a persuasive essay about their chosen title.

Session One

• Display a selection of banned or challenged books in a prominent place in your classroom. Include in this selection books meant for children and any included in the school curriculum. Ask students to speculate on what these books have in common.
• Explain to the students that these books have been "censored."  Ask students to brainstorm a definition of censorship and record the students' ideas on the board or chart paper. When you have come up with a definition the group agrees on, have students record the definition.
• Brainstorm ways in which things are censored for them already and who controls what is censored and how. Examples include Internet filtering, ratings on movies, video games, music, and self-censoring (choosing to watch only 1 news show or choosing not to read a certain type of book).  Discuss circumstances in which censorship would be necessary, if any, with the students.
• Provide the students’ definitions for challenged books as well as banned books. (Share these American Library Association definitions: “A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials.”)
• After the students have seen the ALA definition, have the students “grow” in their own definitions. Ask them to revisit their definition and align it with the one presented by the American Library Association.
• Invite the students to brainstorm any books that they have heard of that have been challenged or banned from schools or libraries. Ask them if they know why those books were found to be controversial.
• Students should then brainstorm titles of other books that they feel could possibly be challenged or banned from their school collection.  Allow time for students to share these titles with their classmates and offer an explanation of why they think these titles could possibly be challenged or banned.
• Share with the students a list of banned books .
• Did they find them to be entertaining, informative, beneficial or objectionable?
• Can they suggest reasons why someone would object to elementary, middle school or high school students reading these books?
• If desired, complete the session by allowing students to learn more about Banned Books Week , additional challenged/banned books, and cases involving First Amendment Rights.

Session Two

• From a teacher-selected list of grade-appropriate books from the Challenged Children's Books list , have groups of students select one of the books to read in literature circles, traditional reading groups, or through read-alouds.
• As the students read, ask them to pay particular attention to the features in the books that may have made them controversial. As students find quotes/parts of the book that they find to be controversial, they should add them to their T-Chart , along with an explanation of why they think that this area could be controversial.  On the left side of their T-Chart , they will list the quote or section of the book (with page numbers); on the right side of the T-Chart , they will write their thoughts on why this area could be seen as controversial.
• You may also choose to invite the students to use bookmarks (in addition to or instead of the T-Chart ) , so they can record page numbers and passages as they read.

Session Three

• After the students have completed the reading of their book, have a group or class discussion on the students' findings that they recorded on their bookmarks or T-Chart .
• Next, explain to students that they will be writing a persuasive piece stating what they believe should be done with the book that has been challenged. If students read the book in groups, they could write a team response.
• Share the  Persuasive Writing Rubric to explore the requirements of the assignment in more detail and allow for students' questions about the assignment.
• Demonstrate the Persuasion Map and work through a sample book challenge to show students how to use the tool to structure their essays.
• Provide students with access to computers, and allow students the remainder of class to work with the Persuasion Map as a brainstorming tool and to guide them through work on their papers.  If computer access is a problem, you may provide students with print copies of the Persuasion Map Printout .
• Encourage students to share their thoughts and opinions with the class as they work on their drafts.  Students should print out their work at the end of the session.

Session Four

• Invite students to share their persuasive pieces with the rest of the class. It is their job to persuade teachers, librarians, or administrators to keep the book in their collection, remove the book from their collection, or add the book to their collection.
• For an authentic sharing session, invite parents in for a panel discussion while the children present their thoughts and opinions on the matter of challenged and banned books.
• Students can discuss the books after each presentation to draw conclusions about each title and about censorship and challenges overall.

Concerned Parent The concerned parent is interested in how controversial materials affect school children. The concerned parent wants to maintain a healthy learning environment for students.   Classroom Teacher The Classroom Teacher needs to select books that will both match the interests of the students and also meet the requirements of the curriculum. The Classroom Teacher needs to listen to the parents, and also follow the rules of the school.   School Library Media Specialist The School Library Media Specialist selects library materials based on the curriculum and reading interests the students in the school.   School Lawyer The School Lawyer is concerned about how the students’ civil liberties would be affected if the School Board decided to ban books.

• Students can elicit responses and reactions from peers, teachers, administrators, librarians, the author, and parents in regards to the particular book they are researching. Ask students to focus on the appropriateness of the book in reference to an elementary school collection.  
• Discuss Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico and how after the decision from that court case public school districts around the country developed policies concerning book challenges in elementary, middle, and high school libraries.
• Students can play the role of the librarian and decide where a challenged/banned book should be shelved. For example, the challenged book may be a picture book, but the “librarian” might decide that the book should instead be shelved in the Teacher Resource Section of the library. An alternative for Sessions Three and Four for this lesson plan is to ask students to write persuasive essays explaining where the book should be shelved and why it should be shelved there.

Student Assessment / Reflections

• As students discuss censorship and challenged/banned books, and as they read their selected text, listen for comments that indicate they are identifying specific examples from the story that connect to the information they have learned (you should also check for evidence of this on their bookmarks or T-Chart ). The connections that they make between the details in the novel and the details they choose as their supporting reasons for their persuasive piece will reveal their understanding and engagement with the books.
• Monitor student interaction and progress during any group work to assess social skills and assist any students having problems.
• Respond to the content and quality of students’ thoughts in their final reflections on the project. Look for indications that the student provides supporting evidence for the reflections, thus applying the lessons learned from the work with the Persuasion Map .
• Assess students’ persuasive writing piece using the rubric .
• Calendar Activities
• Professional Library
• Student Interactives
• Lesson Plans

Students brainstorm reasons why certain books might have been banned and discuss common reasons why books are challenged.

Students adapt a Roald Dahl story to picture book format and share their books and add them to the classroom library. Additionally, they compare a book version and film version of one of Dahl's works.

Bring the celebration of reading and literacy into your classroom, library, school, and home all year long.

The current edition of The Students' Right to Read is an adaptation and updating of the original Council statement, including "Citizen's Request for Reconsideration of a Work."

The Persuasion Map is an interactive graphic organizer that enables students to map out their arguments for a persuasive essay or debate.

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Banned Books Lessons: Teaching about Censorship in High School

Looking for a fresh twist on a literature unit? For several years, I’ve been incorporating banned books lessons into my high school English curriculum. Why? For one, it allows me to implement choice reading. Also, it’s one of the most engaging units for my students. Whenever I can make reading engaging, I jump at the opportunity. 

For good reason, teachers might be hesitant about mentioning “banned books” in the classroom. However, I think there’s a huge misconception when it comes to literature that’s been censored. It’s not just books like  50 Shades of Grey that have earned a bad rap. Many people might be surprised  to learn about this list of censored texts:  

• The Adventures of Captain Underpants –  Banned for insensitivity and being unsuited to age group, as well as encouraging children to disobey.
• Where’s Waldo? –  Banned because in one of the pictures, the side of a female is exposed.
• Where the Sidewalk Ends –  Banned for promoting cannibalism and for promoting that children break dishes.
• Little Red Riding Hood –  Banned because Little Red Riding Hood was depicted as carrying a bottle of wine in her basket.
• The Diary of Anne Frank –  Banned for certain “sexually offensive” passages and because it might be “depressing” for young readers.
• Lord of the Flies –  Banned for being “demoralizing, in that it implies that man is little more than an animal.”
• Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland –  Banned in the ’60s because its mushroom and hookah imagery reflected the drug culture of the era. Later, in the ’90s, it was banned in New Hampshire for promoting “sexual fantasies.” Chinese officials in the ’30s perceived a problem with the book’s depiction of talking animals, considering it “disastrous to put animals and human beings on the same level.”
• Fahrenheit 451 –  Banned for anti-government advocacy.
• The Merriam Webster Dictionary –  Banned for including the definition of oral sex.
• Where the Wild Things Are:  Banned for traumatizing children with the thought that a mother as primary caregiver could send her child to bed without breakfast.

Every September, I look forward to Banned Books Week . I teach in a relatively conservative community. Banned books are not something I push my students to read with an agenda. Rather, I like to take the opportunity to educate students about literary censorship and intellectual freedom. These are new concepts for the majority of my freshmen. It’s so important to open their eyes to the fact that literary censorship happens across the world.

While banned books are a touchy subject for many, teachers can introduce them in a way that is culturally sensitive for any community. No matter what district you’re in, there are ways you can teach students about censorship to make them more well-rounded citizens. These lesson plan ideas would work for any time during the school year. I just like to capitalize on Banned Books Week to bring awareness that it even exists.

WAYS TO INCORPORATE LESSONS ON BANNED BOOKS

• Incorporate them as part of a genre study.
• Use them as options in literature circles, book clubs, or other independent reading programs.
• Have students read one and write an essay arguing whether or not it should be banned. Other possible essay topics: Do books have the power to sway beliefs and behavior? Do authors have a responsibility to write content that is clean and age-appropriate for young adult audiences?
• Debate whether or not books should be governed by the same type of rating system as books and movies.
• Ask students to research and explore literary censorship throughout history and across the world. They can jigsaw their findings.
• Students can interview school administrators, librarians, school board members, and parents to gather information about book banning and challenging in your district.
• Discuss censorship as you study classic literature that has been banned and challenged, including many of Shakespeare’s plays and famous novels like  To Kill a Mockingbird .
• Have students explore their right to read as it relates to the First Amendment.
• Assign a web quest that allows students to research and explore various aspects of censorship.
• Complete a KWLS chart about banned books. You’ll be surprised at how very little your students actually know. Don’t have one? Try this .

TIPS FOR TREADING LIGHTLY WITH CENSORSHIP

When covering banned and challenged books in the classroom, especially in a conservative community, it’s helpful to ride the fence. Don’t take a stand for or against literary censorship. Instead, allow students to learn the facts and make their own decisions.

Involve parents. Keep them informed about your lessons and their importance. Ask them to provide a signature for the banned or challenged book their child wants to read. Keep in mind…most books have been banned or challenged, but people are often unaware of this fact. If you are  asking a student to read a book  because it has been censored, it’s important to gain parental permission.

Remember that everyone has different life experiences and backgrounds, which could make some students more sensitive to certain topics than others. In the past, I’ve asked students and their parents to fill out a survey in which I ask them if there are any topics they would prefer to avoid. Rarely do I get these requests, but they happen.

Be tasteful. While many banned and challenged books are harmless, there are others that truly are inappropriate for certain age groups. When literary censorship is covered in the classroom, teachers need to keep in mind that even high school students are impressionable and need adult guidance.

However you choose to approach it, teaching students about banned books is an excellent way to open their eyes to the truth. While literary censorship can certainly be beneficial for adolescents in some circumstances, raising up a generation of teenagers who is completely unaware of its existence is a dangerous road. 

Have you taught your classes about censorship in the past? What are your favorite ways for engaging students with banned and challenged books? 

Pique Student Interest with Banned Books

Related resource:.

Click on the image below to view assignment details for introducing the concept of literary censorship in the high school classroom.

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Unite Against Book Bans: Ways to Take Action

The New York Public Library is dedicated to free and open access to information and knowledge. We believe that all people have the freedom to read. This freedom has recently been under threat by an alarming increase in book bans over the past several years. We invite you to stand with us against book banning and censorship—learn more below about how to get involved.

Get Involved

• Visit nypl.org/booksforall to learn about opportunities and events at NYPL celebrating the freedom to read, including our Teen Banned Book Club , free toolkit, and more.  
• Make your voice heard on social media using the hashtag #UniteAgainstBookBans and tagging @nypl.   
• Check out the ALA’s Freedom to Read statement .  This landmark declaration of principles from the American Library Association (ALA) was originally written in the 1950s in response to a rise in censorship efforts during the McCarthy era.  
• Get talking points and more online at Unite Against Book Bans from the American Library Association, including a guide for how to get in touch with decision-makers.  
• See for yourself the current state of book bans using this database provided by the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC).  
• Explore more resources to help you take action with NCAC’s Action Toolkit.  
• Stay up to date on book bans and censorship using PEN America’s resource center .  
• Talk about the freedom to read with your friends, family, teachers, and community—and consider starting a banned book club using the guide below.

Start a Banned Book Club

Throughout the year, the Library will be hosting special Teen Banned Book Club events online with the authors of our book club picks. Join us there—or you can start your own!

Book clubs are a great way to talk about what you’re reading. By organizing your own Banned Book Club, you can read titles that interest you and think about why it’s important that everyone has the right to read freely.

• Research what books are being banned using resources linked above. ALA is a good starting place. 
• Check out books from your local library or download them for free using NYPL’s SimplyE app . 
• Read the book, or listen to the audiobook.

Some questions to discuss while you read: 

• Why is it important for people to be able to read this book? 
• Why do you think people don’t want this book to be read?
• Why would you recommend this book to others?

#UniteAgainstBookBans: Make Your Voice Heard

Share your support for the right to read freely on social media and email.

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In a Poem, Just Who Is ‘the Speaker,’ Anyway?

Critics and readers love the term, but it can be awfully slippery to pin down. That’s what makes it so fun to try.

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By Elisa Gabbert

Elisa Gabbert’s collections of poetry and essays include, most recently, “Normal Distance” and the forthcoming “Any Person Is the Only Self.” Her On Poetry columns appear four times a year.

The pages of “A Little White Shadow,” by Mary Ruefle, house a lyric “I” — the ghost voice that emerges so often from what we call a poem. Yet the I belonged first to another book, a Christian text of the same name published in 1890, by Emily Malbone Morgan.

Ruefle “erased” most words of Morgan’s text with white paint, leaving what look like lines of verse on the yellowed pages: “my brain/grows weary/just thinking how to make/thought.” (My virgules are approximate — should I read all white gaps as line breaks, even if the words are in the same line of prose? Are larger gaps meant to form stanzas?)

On another page, we read (can I say Ruefle writes ?): “I was brought in contact/with the phenomenon/peculiar to/’A/shadow.’” It would be difficult to read Ruefle’s book without attributing that I to the author, to Ruefle, one way or another, although the book’s I existed long before she did.

This method of finding an I out there, already typed, to identify with, seems to me not much different from typing an I . An I on the page is abstract, symbolic, and not the same I as in speech, which in itself is not the same I as the I in the mind.

When an old friend asked me recently if I didn’t find the idea of “the speaker” to be somewhat underexamined, I was surprised by the force of the YES that rose up in me. I too had been following the critical convention of referring to whatever point of view a poem seems to generate as “the speaker” — a useful convention in that it (supposedly) prevents us from ascribing the views of the poem to its author. But in that moment I realized I feel a little fraudulent doing so. Why is that?

Perhaps because I never think of a “speaker” when writing a poem. I don’t posit some paper-doll self that I can make say things. It’s more true to say that the poem always gives my own I, my mind’s I, the magic ability to say things I wouldn’t in speech or in prose.

It’s not just that the poem, like a play or a novel, is fictive — that these genres offer plausible deniability, though they do. It’s also that formal constraints have the power to give us new thoughts. Sometimes, in order to make a line sound good, to fit the shape of the poem, I’m forced to cut a word or choose a different word, and what I thought I wanted to say gets more interesting. The poem has more surprising thoughts than I do.

“The speaker,” as a concept, makes two strong suggestions. One is that the voice of a poem is a kind of persona. In fact, when I looked for an entry on the subject in our New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (a tome if there ever was one, at 1,383 pages), I found only: “Speaker: See PERSONA.” This latter term is an “ancient distinction,” writes the scholar Fabian Gudas, between poems in the poet’s “own voice” and those in which “characters” are speaking.

But, as the entry goes on to note, 20th-century critics have questioned whether we can ever look at a poem as “the direct utterance of its author.” While persona seems too strong to apply to some first-person lyrics, the speaker implies all lyrics wear a veil of persona, at least, if not a full mask.

The second implication is that the voice is a voice — that a poem has spokenness , even just lying there silent on the page.

The question here, the one I think my friend was asking, is this: Does our use of “the speaker” as shorthand — for responsible readership, respectful acknowledgment of distance between poet and text — sort of let us off the hook? Does it give us an excuse to think less deeply than we might about degrees of persona and spokenness in any given poem?

Take Louise Glück’s “The Wild Iris,” “a book in which flowers speak,” as Glück herself described it. One flower speaks this, in “Trillium”: “I woke up ignorant in a forest;/only a moment ago, I didn’t know my voice/if one were given me/would be so full of grief.” (I find a note that I’ve stuck on this page, at some point: The flowers give permission to express .)

“Flowers don’t have voices,” James Longenbach writes, in his essay “The Spokenness of Poetry” — “but it takes a flower to remind us that poems don’t really have voices either.”

They’re more like scores for voices, maybe. A score isn’t music — it’s paper, not sound — and, as Jos Charles writes in an essay in “Personal Best: Makers on Their Poems That Matter Most,” “the written poem is often mistaken for the poem itself.” A poem, like a piece of music, she writes, “is neither its score nor any one performance,” but what is repeatable across all performances. Any reader reading a poem performs it — we channel the ghost voice.

There are poems that have almost no spokenness — such as Aram Saroyan’s “minimal poems,” which might consist of a single nonword on the page (“lighght,” most famously, but see also “morni,ng” or “Blod”). Or consider Paul Violi’s “Index,” whose first line is “Hudney, Sutej IX, X, XI, 7, 9, 25, 58, 60, 61, 64.” Is anyone speaking the page numbers?

And there are poems that have almost no persona, as in the microgenre whose speaker is a poetry instructor (see “Introduction to Poetry,” by Billy Collins).

Yet I’m not interested only in edge cases. There are so many subtle gradations of “speaker” in the middle, so much room for permission. A speaker may seem threatening, as in June Jordan’s “Poem About My Rights”: “from now on my resistance … may very well cost you your life.” A speaker may seem dishonest — Tove Ditlevsen’s first published poem was called “To My Dead Child,” addressing a stillborn infant who had in fact never existed.

Auden would say it’s hard not to “tell lies” in a poem, where “all facts and all beliefs cease to be true or false and become interesting possibilities.” So, we might say, the “speaker” is the vessel for the full range of lies that the poet is willing to tell.

“Poetry is not for personal confessions,” George Seferis wrote in a journal; “it expresses another personality that belongs to everyone.” This suggests poetry comes from some underlying self. If, by invoking “the speaker,” I avoid a conflation of the I and its author, I may also crowd the page with more figures than I need: a speaker and an author, both outside the poem. I wonder sometimes if there’s anyone there, when I’m reading. Does the speaker speak the poem? Or does the poem just speak?

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