After Parents Try To Remove Books From Schools, Sarasota Poetry Event For Students Nixed

SARASOTA COUNTY, FL — An annual celebration of poetry that connects Sarasota County students with prominent poets has been canceled because of “right-wing” parents’ demands to remove books from schools and libraries, the event’s organizer said.

Georgia Court, owner of Bookstore1Sarasota and founder of the PoetryLife festival, told Patch she canceled the event after a library administrator for Sarasota County Schools told her “there were parents demanding the removal of certain books in schools (and) libraries and that the schools were uncertain in the face of protests whether to commit to events for students.”

Cuban American poet Richard Blanco, who grew up in Miami and read at President Barack Obama’s second inauguration, shared a message from Court about the canceled event, which he called “disturbing,” on his Facebook page Tuesday.

Court confirmed to Patch that she sent the message to Blanco.

"I’m greatly disturbed by the movement in Florida that has created an atmosphere where parents are organizing in groups to intimidate teachers and librarians. Their aim is to remove any book that does not match their right-wing political agenda. Because of this situation — of serious threats to schools and libraries — I felt it prudent to cancel PoetryLife 2022,” Court wrote.

“PoetryLife has been an annual Sarasota event since 2012 and this coming year we would have brought two prominent poets to speak with more than 300 high school students in March. However, because of these threats, the school system was not comfortable committing to a literary event, as it had done in the past. It is truly a worrisome time for freedom of expression in this state," Court added.

She said poets Carolyn Forché and Pádraig Ó Tuama were scheduled to appear at the upcoming festival.

Sarasota County Schools didn’t respond to Patch’s request for comments.

Blanco, who has participated in previous PoetryLife events, said the program brings “top-notch poets from all across the country” to Sarasota each spring. He called the cancellation of the 2022 festival “horrible.”

“This is not a political event, just poets reading poetry about all sorts of things in life and giving students and children a way of looking at the world through poetry and art,” he said.

The poet added, “It’s fascism at the end of the day, especially in a town like Sarasota, which is so vibrant with the arts and theater. I’ve had so many great experiences there. It’s just horrible when you’re trying to do something out of the good of your heart for the sake of students’ well-being and you have to cancel it for a reason like this.”

While Court said she didn't know of any specific group requesting the removal of certain book titles from schools and libraries, Blanco said that the Sarasota chapter Moms for Liberty is behind the movement.

Though Moms for Liberty didn’t respond to Patch’s request for comment, chapters of the organization across Florida and the United States have reportedly coordinated efforts to demand specific books be removed from local classrooms and libraries.

On Florida’s East Coast, the organization’s Indian River County chapter shared a list of dozens of books its members said includes pornographic material that’s inappropriate for children with the Indian River County School Board, according to Sebastian Daily.

“There’s no educational value to children reading about rape, incest, bestiality, pedophilia, sexually explicit content, or sexual acts,” Jennifer Pippin, the chapter’s chair, said during a school board meeting.

The group was also reportedly behind the removal of the book “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” which discusses sexual orientation, from Vero Beach High School.

In Tennessee, a Moms for Liberty chapter in Williamson County sought to ban books about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the integration of California schools and the autobiography of Ruby Bridges from elementary school curriculum, calling them “anti-American” and “anti-white,” the Tennessean reported. The Tennessee Department of Education declined to investigate the group’s complaint.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, members of the group are part of a movement in Wake County to remove books with graphic language and images about sex from school libraries, The News & Observer reported. At least nine criminal complaints were filed against the school system there, accusing it of distributing obscene and pornographic material to students.

“The arts make you think, and I think that’s dangerous to these people. To these kinds of groups, anything that makes you question the status quo is dangerous,” Blanco, a supporter of the arts in schools, said. “I also wonder what’s next? Are they going to say what you can paint in art class? What kind of music we will be able to listen to? It’s very much like a McCarthy era type of thing.”