When British officials commissioned the UK’s Poet Laureate Ted Hughes to write a poem in defense of books for a big government report, they knew they could expect an impassioned defense of literature. And when the verse arrived, they were not disappointed – as Hughes powerful words lambasted book-burning enemies of culture from Hitler, Stalin to Mao. But they shuddered as Hughes then turned his venom on new technology – because a central point of the government report was the importance of introducing new technology in libraries to make them part of what officials style as a people’s network. A red-faced official then had to ring Hughes and plead with the great man for a re-write of the offending section. Happily for them, he obliged and the controversial part of the poem seems to have disappeared – as totally as if it had been burned.
