News at Eleven: Governments have always wanted the common man

to connect himself back to this superstructure so we can function together harmoniously. An independent or creative thinker threatens that. I don't want to oversimplify: the burning of books is to destroy permanently individual thought. Having worked closely with an organization such as PEN and being involved with poets, especially in the anthology I've edited, there were a number of poets who have gone missing. I would like to think that doesn't really happen in this country, that there's not as much of a threat. In this country, unfortunately, we are suffering from the opposite. [Here, poets would] be really grateful if people would pick up a book and read a poem, let alone [think] that poetry is a threat. There are very few poems that have threatened our current government or have threatened a group of people so that "we" want to delete or destroy this text because it's threatening to us, and that exactly is what my first poem is talking about, "The Unfinished Book of Mortals."

from The Brooklyn Rail: Tina Chang with David St. Lascaux

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