“Burning a Book”, a poem by William Stafford, puts the idea of book burning, which is
generally looked down upon, into a more positive perspective. Usually when one thinks of
burning, one thinks of censorship, like in Fahrenheit 451, which is what I immediately thought of
when I read the title. The poem itself discusses ignorance, lies, and knowledge; the speaker says
that burned books are better than unwritten books, as ignorance is worse than
destruction/censorship.
The first stanza of this poem is filled with imagery of the process of a book burning: “The
cover goes first, then outer leaves/ curling away, then spine and a scattering” (lines 3-4). This
brings the idea of burning a book into the reader’s mind, which normally has negative
connotation, book burning often represents the destruction of knowledge. Then, the speaker
describes in depth what the book burning process represents: “Truth, brittle and faint, burns
easily,/ its fire as hot as the fire lies make/ flame doesn't care” (5-8). At first it seems as if though
the speaker means that truth can be easily obstructed, but as the quote continues, the burning of
truth is described as equal to burning lies; the speaker is showing how truth and lies hold the
same value. I know that’s worded weird, but I don’t know how to say what I mean. Fire
neutralizes them and once they are destroyed, neither matters more than the other.
The next stanza starts with a pretty bold statement: “some books ought to burn” (9).
Again, as burning books has a generally negative connotation, this statement goes against the
grain of what most would expect. The speaker then goes on to explain how burning books is not
nearly as bad as the “libraries that no one/ got around to writing” (12-13). This means that for a
book to be burned, the knowledge for it to have been written had to be known in the first place
and the ideas in the book had to be expressed beforehand. But, an unwritten book shows that
either the ideas it describes has not been discussed yet or the knowledge in the book is not known
yet. So, the books not being written in the first place shows ignorance. The speaker goes on to
say that “ignorance can dance in the absence of fire” (17). The burning of a book means that that
book at one time expressed knowledge even if it was destroyed, but the absence of book burning
means that ignorance is sustained.