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Tuesday, February 01, 2022

MAUS IS A NEW BEST SELLER

by Tom Bauer


(CNN) Within weeks of a Tennessee school district moving to ban "Maus," a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel depicting the horrors of the Holocaust, readers are propelling it to the top of best seller lists more than 30 years after it was first published.


Maybe we should ban everything good? Like
inequity, peace and restraint? Let’s ban
fairness, truth and care while we’re at it; and
freedom and justice. Make them bestsellers too!
We could make the world a better place and ban
apple trees, sunny skies and clean fresh air.
And any kind of universal income.
And transparency. Veganism! Ban that!
What else would work? What else could we ban
to make it come back stronger? Listening? Sense?
Any efforts to hear the other side?
Definitely ban green new deals and wealth tax,
and progressive politicians most of all.
Ban it all and make the world a better place!


Tom Bauer grew up playing violin and listening to spoken word recordings. When he was ten, he rashly announced he was going to be a poet. He did a bunch of university and stuff. He's had some poems published. He lives in Montreal and plays board games.