The Burning of the Book - Bertolt Brecht

[Larry Robinson]

The Burning of the Books



When the Regime
commanded the unlawful books to be burned,
teams of dull oxen hauled huge cartloads to the bonfires.

Then a banished writer, one of the best,
scanning the list of excommunicated texts,
became enraged: he’d been excluded!

He rushed to his desk, full of contemptuous wrath,
to write fiery letters to the morons in power—
Burn me! he wrote with his blazing pen—
Haven’t I always reported the truth?
Now here you are, treating me like a liar!
Burn me!

	- Bertolt Brecht

	(translation by Michael R. Burch)