Hello All. Lisa here at the dVerse Universe Open Link Night, where you may link up ONE of your poems on any topic. You may also choose to be inspired by, and write to, the optional prompt I’m about to tell you about. If you are hungry or thirsty for snacks, please let me know what you’d like and I’ll rustle it up for you.

I just learned that the week of October 5-11, 2025 is Banned Books Week. Isn’t it a bit disconcerting that so many books have been banned that there needs to be a week to call attention to them?

A disturbing trend I’ve seen at my district library system is ongoing large book sales, where each of the 11 branches has a minimum of two large sales every year. To me, this represents a quiet culling of volumes that may or may not be banned, but the sales effectively take those volumes out of hard copy circulation. At the same time, the number of digital volumes has vastly increased in the last 7 years.  For anyone who has tried to access digital media from the library, there can be months-long waiting lists.

You can find a list of the most commonly challenged books in the United States here.

I’ve scrolled through the most commonly challenged book list and am sharing random quotes from a few of them:

What’s the use you learning to do right when it’s troublesome to do right
and ain’t no trouble to do wrong, and the wages is just the same?
– Mark Twain, from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

*

Memory is the happiness of being alone.  ― Lois Lowry, Anastasia Krupnick

*

I pretended to be really busy reading a book but the truth is—I was watching Moose. If he looked toward me I put my nose back in the book in a hurry. Moose would be number one in my Boy Book if only I was brave enough, but what would Nancy think? She hated him.
– Judy Blume, from Are You There, God, It’s me, Margaret

*

… my subjects’ willingness to brave bullying and condemnation in order to reveal their individual selves makes it impossible to be nothing less than awestruck.
– Susan Kuklin, from Beyond Magenta

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The world is changing. It is no longer a world just for boys. 
–Alice Walker, from The Color Purple

Silverstein’s poetry was thought to promote unruly behavior in children.
— Saint Paul Public Library

And now we have come to the moment we’re here for:

The optional prompt today is to choose one of the following:
1) choose one of the above quotes to inspire you. Please indicate which quote you wrote to and give attribution somewhere in your post.
2) choose a quote from another banned book and give attribution somewhere in your post.
3) poem about what banning books does to a society

Let the poeming commence!

Those of you new to dVerse, here’s how to participate:
•Post any poem of your choosing on your blog or website.
•Click on Mr. Linky below to add your name and enter the direct URL to your poem
•On your blog, please provide a link back to dVerse. This enables others to enjoy our prompts, increases our readership and thus increases the responses to everyone’s poems.
•If you promote your poem on social media, use the tag #dverse poets
•Please do read some of the other responses to the prompt and add a short comment or reaction. Everyone likes to be appreciated! The prompt is open and linkable for several days so do stop by another day and read a few of the latecomers too.
•Have fun!

OpenLinkNight Mr.Linky is open until Saturday at 3pm EST (NY time)

BONUS VIDEO is about 10 Top Songs that are banned around the world.