The Burning of The Books by Bertolt Brecht
The Burning of The Books
Bertolt BrechtWhen the Regime commanded that books with harmful knowledge
Should be publicly burned on all sides
Oxen were forced to drag cart loads of books
To the bonfires, a banished
Writer, one of the best, scanning the list of the
Burned, was shocked to find that his
Books had been passed over. He rushed to his desk
On wings of wrath, and wrote a letter to those in power.
Burn me! he wrote with flying pen, burn me. Haven’t my books
Always reported the truth? And here you are
Treating me like a liar! I command you:
Burn me!
MARGINALIA
My friend and I were talking about people burning books in history. There were a lot of works citing this event today, fiction and nonfiction both. I was wondering if anyone ever wrote a poem about it, and I found this one after a bit of a search.
ABOUT BERTOLT BRECHT
Bertolt Brecht was born on February 10, 1898, in Augsburg, Germany. A poet and essayist, he was most notably a playwright whose theatrical works portrayed social issues. During World War II, he lived in exile, first for several years in Denmark. His collection of “Svenborg Poems” was published under the title Poems in Exile in Copenhagen in 1939. Brecht moved to the United States in 1941 and worked in the film industry in Los Angeles. In 1947, he returned to Europe, ultimately settling… (more)
Read more poems by Bertolt Brecht • Find books by this poet on Amazon • Bookshop • Or view my library
ENDNOTES
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Liz Rosenberg
This is a great, great poem, but not a great translation. Hoping you will find a stronger one sometime. But thank you for including it!
Jeanette LeBlanc
I know this is a very old post, but wanted to comment.
I have been familiar with your poetry for some time, but only just stumbled onto this site last week, for I am in one of those spaces where my own writing has been stalled (for way too long) but in which I find myself with an unquenchable thirst for the poetry of others. I am so grateful for this powerful collective of incredible poetry, and plan to lose myself for hours just clicking from one to the next (indeed, have already done so).
I was excited to see there is also a substack, but sadneed to see only one post – I subscribed just the same, ever optimistic that you’ll share more of your process there.
I wanted to comment on this poem however, because I read a three book series this year by AJ Hackwith (not high brow literary fiction to be sure, but such a lovely exploration of the power of story, and I’m a sucker for books about books). The first book is called The Library of The Unwritten, and somewhere in the series there is a whole exploration of a library that houses books that have been burned, destroyed or otherwise forgotten. Even if the genre isn’t your speed, goodreads has lovely collection of great quotes.
“They burn them first, the stories. Humans always come for the stories first. It’s their warm-up, before they start burning other humans. It’s their first form of control, to burn the libraries, to burn the books, to burn the archives of a culture. Humans are the stories they tell. If you want to destroy your enemy, destroy their stories. Even if the people survive, it will be as if they never existed at all.”
― A.J. Hackwith, The Archive of the Forgotten
T.
Hi Jeanette—thank you so much for this lovely comment and for sharing the quote. I appreciate you being here and hope you find poems that hold you when you need them.
T.