Spring Green Literary Festival Sponsors An Evening Of Prohibited Poetry

Doors open at 6:00 pm with the program beginning at 7:00 pm, featuring Brenda Cardenas, Wisconsin Poet Laureate and James Roberts, celebrated poet and member of the leadership team for the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets, and American Players Theatre actors David Daniel and Alys Dickerson. All will speak poems that have faced banning attempts throughout time, including Shakespeare, Walt Whitman, Amanda Gorman’s inaugural poem in 2021, and the poetry of today.

This event is the first in a series as part of the Community Read programming during the month of October that is sponsored by the Spring Green Literary Festival. This year’s theme is Banned Books. The Community Read activities offer an opportunity to explore the reasons for banned books, who bans books, what examples are there of banned books throughout history, and what are the trends in book banning today.

The book recommended for reading is That Librarian by Amanda Jones. It is not a banned book but rather a real-life story about a librarian’s fight against censorship.

For a calendar of all events, go to springgreenlitfest.org. All events are free. The Community Read is made possible by funds provided by River Valley Arts and the Wisconsin Arts Board.