Bruce Severy

Bruce Wayne Severy (July 16, 1947-April 12, 2007) was a poet and writer originally from the Los Angeles area who gained notoriety when, as a high school English teacher in Drake, North Dakota in 1973, he assigned the novel Slaughterhouse-Five to his sophomore class. After a student objected to its language, it was deemed obscene by the local school board, with the copies taken from students and burned in the school's furnace. The event led to national media coverage and a response from Vonnegut himself. Ultimately, Severy lost his job and relocated with his family to Fargo. After graduate studies at Bowling Green State University, he returned to California.

California and Relocation to Drake

Mira Costa High School, 2021

Bruce Severy was born on July 16, 1947 in Los Angeles county. His parents, Wayne (December 15, 1924-August 29, 1995) and Katherine (August 9, 1917-January 1980), had married on August 20 the previous year. His father was from the Los Angeles area while his mother was born in Oregon and he had one younger brother, Stephen. Severy attended Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach and later graduated from California State College, Long Beach. He also did graduate studies at Washington State University at Pullman under Howard McCord, who he predicted in the future would "be recognized as a really major poet". His wife Sally was from Philadelphia and the two had a daughter, Liz (Elizabet). They had married in Los Angeles on January 2, 1969 after the birth of their daughter on April 16, 1968. Before the family relocated to Drake in 1971, Severy taught at Compton Junior College, was the Los Angeles correspondent for the Guardian—a leftist weekly based in New York—and occasionally published in the Los Angeles Free Press, notably articles on then-California Governor Ronald Reagan. An article for the Guardian was once included in El Malcriado, a newsletter focusing on farm worker issues, while another discussed repression in the California State college system. Before taking his job at the high school, he had considered applying for a position at Minot Daily News.

Seven hundred copies of his poetry collection Crossing Into the Prairies were printed in February 1973. By his own account in an interview printed on July 14, 1973, he was taking correspondence courses from the University of North Dakota for a minor in history and by this time had published about 65 poems. These included "sundays are spent" in the Prairie Schooner; "how we do things", "mud", and "from 400 yards" in Outsider; "Dracula" and "The Changing of the Guard" in Quixote, and a work in New: American and Canadian Poetry in September 1969. In the summer of 1973, while also working in construction, Severy sought to start a literary magazine to be called Mouse River Review supported by, among others, McCord and the poet Tom McGrath. Severy believed his poetry had improved in the "prairie environment" of what he broadly called Dakota, a term "to encompass the rural northern plains in several area states". He said the "hunting, outdoor work and gardening" added to the imagery of his poetry, and that he and his family appreciated the "farmers who have a sense of balance, a harmony with nature". Severy further stated that he thought North Dakota was "one of the best places around". Despite enjoying the natural environment, relations with the local residents were somewhat strained, with Sally admitting that the family never tried "to fit in... because we're so different from the townspeople". Severy later agreed, saying the community was focused on "churches, card parties, the Commercial Club", although they didn't seek to insult or antagonize other residents. He said he later learned that others perceived them as "intellectual snobs who thought [they] were too good" for the community because they "read books and write poetry and don't mingle".

Drake Controversy

See Also: Dear Mr. McCarthy#Background

On Tuesday, November 6, 1973, the Drake School Board deemed that several works assigned by Severy—specifically Slaughterhouse-Five for sophomores, Deliverance by James Dickey for juniors, and Short Story Masterpieces, which included works by Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, James Joyce, and others, for freshmen—were obscene and thus not appropriate assigned reading. The board ordered Superintendent Dale Fuhrman to collect and burn the offending books. According to the school's principal, Bruce Henderson, none of the board members had read any of the books, although some had read excerpts and "since the board meeting Tuesday some may have read entire texts". Severy himself was shocked that "any school in the United States would burn books" and argued that the novel "tries to knock down some of our hypocritical practices". He said the book, which the class was one-third of the way through, was well-received and that "C and D students were suddenly writing A papers". Although Severy claimed that the board had advised him to resign or he would be fired, Fuhrman denied this. Stating his intent was not to court controversy, Severy mentioned assigning works such as Giants of the Earth and The Hobbit instead for future classes.

Severy responded to the controversy in the November 10 edition of the Minot Daily News. Saying he chose Slaughterhouse-Five for its immediacy, modern style, brevity, and its ability to address "current problems in an honest and straightforward manner", he argued the book at its core is not about obscenity, but rather questions why humans still kill each other. Beyond this, it asks about the lack of dignity and respect for others found in the world, why material success fails to bring satisfaction, and how apathy results from a seeming lack of free will. As a "moral book", our own inhuman behavior is exposed and solutions are sought. The language Vonnegut uses is that of the real world. Those on the school board have banned it without even reading the entire work, which is "academically dishonest, anti-intellectual, and irrational". Severy insisted that only one student in his two classes objected to the book after two chapters, and he would not require a student to read a book they or their parents objected to. Nonetheless, he stated that he would abide by the decision of the school board.

Mrs. Severy noted that she had been contacted by the Minot committee of the American Civil Liberties Union about a possible class action suit and that McGrath had started a Bruce Severy Defense Fund. Vonnegut himself telephoned, informing Severy that the book had been banned on three other occasions—twice in the South, once in Michigan—and that "As soon as they got to any judge who had been to law school, he threw it out". Severy commented that all the national attention "serves the school board right" for thinking that "Drake was not connected to the rest of the world" and says he would still have assigned the texts. He said had he been approached directly, he would have assigned a different book to anyone who objected and claims the controversy is about student access to books. During a school board meeting the following Tuesday, minor vandalism struck the First National Bank of Drake, the public school, and the cars of some school officials. Severy speculated that these events may be directly tied to the book controversy. Severy, who said he had been blamed for the vandalism and "bad publicity" for the town, decried the "deplorable" acts.

Life After Drake

See Also: Dear Mr. McCarthy#Lawsuit

Jules Feiffer, 1976

An interview with Severy in June 1974 indicated that he felt that he had benefited somewhat from the national notoriety. Now enrolled in graduate studies at North Dakota State University, Fargo, he reflected on two recent trips to New York City, once at the expense of the ACLU, the second to appear on the television program To Tell the Truth. There he spent time at the well-known bistro Elaine's, meeting Wilfred Sheed, Jules Feiffer, David Halberstam, and Vonnegut himself. By then, he had published a book of poetry—Something from Dakota, released in an edition of 100 by Tribal Press—and was writing a novel and three articles: one for Harper's about urban intellectuals trying to relocate to rural America and how few succeed; another for a book being prepared by the Arizona Education Association on censorship; and a third for Delacorte Press on how a small town school board operates, which would also be marketed to the New Yorker. As a result of the controversy, a "local newspaper, edited by a friend", lost advertising from local merchants, the family's German Shepherd disappeared, and they were constantly harassed by telephone calls. However, Severy admitted that the publicity aided him since "a certain amount of politics" goes into art, like everything, and it "helps to know the right people". His appearance on episode 1993 of To Tell the Truth aired on the afternoon on Wednesday, October 22, 1975.

Severy addressed a workshop of the North Dakota Education Association convention in Bismarck on October 24, 1974, reviewing the events and reading from an article he wrote about the school board meeting that resulted in the burning, which "is likely to be published in one of two New York journals". Severy claimed he did not deliberately seek to cause trouble, but by the end the townspeople refused to acknowledge his existence. He said that his students, who "remained friendly" to him, were ultimately the ones who lost. An issue of the Arizona English Bulletin entitled Censorship and the Teaching of English was published in February 1975 by the Arizona English Teachers Association of Tempe, featuring Severy's "Scenario of Bookburning" which presents the November 9 board meeting in dialogue format, complete with a description of the "cast of characters", followed by a reflection a year later.

An interview published in the Minot Daily News on November 26, 1974 noted that Severy was now a nightshift orderly at a Fargo hospital. Although his wife also enrolled in college as an undergraduate, Severy dropped out of his graduate program for financial reasons until he could "do it right". Except for the $2.35 an hour pay, he said he loved his current job, which came with much more appreciation than teaching. Severy estimated he had about 125 poems published in the last six years, while the original 700 copies of his first book, Crossing Into the Prairies, had sold out since its February 1973 printing. His two years in Drake brought him material for future works as well as giving him a week in New York City with Vonnegut. He reflects that his time as a teacher may have not been entirely successful, saying he would "hit" with "a lot of missing", spending most of his time "teaching the kids how to write simple sentences". A photograph of the family was included in the following day's edition.

A letter from James D. Brosseau of St. Paul in the December 1 Minneapolis Tribune in response to the article was reprinted in the December 14 Minot Daily News, saying that Severy obviously did not actually appreciate getting away from urban life as much as he had hoped and instead sought to change his new rural community. Had the board buried the books or mailed them back to the publisher, instead of using "the most expedient way" of burning them, no one would have heard of the event. Instead of the issue simply ending with Severy's departure from the town, it led to an absurd lawsuit and Brosseau wonders why the ACLU isn't defending the people of Drake's right to oppose "corruption of their way of life". Awaiting Severy's supposed forthcoming works on the matter, Brosseau reminds readers that "the school board in Drake is not made up of Nazis", the burning was not a public event, and Severy is no hero.

Five of Severy's poems were included in Voices from Wah'Kon-Tah: Contemporary Poetry of Native Americans in 1974, four more in Heartland II: Poets of the Midwest the following year, and two were printed in Esquire in November 1976 and January 1977. "The Guy on the End is Jesse James" and "Rosenthal Glove Mold, 1920" were included in the Fall 1978 edition of Willow Springs. Other poems were printed in Oxygen, Quoin, The Chowder Review, and in the spring 1976 edition of Road/House. Severy participated in "The Dakota Photo Documentary Project", a "pictorial history of all the towns and cities in North Dakota" in 1976, in which each photographer was "assigned seven or eight counties... photographing post offices, schools, churches, hardware stories, barbershops, the oldest living resident, any persons who look interesting". Among Severy's contributions were photographs of D.J. Shults of the Adams County Record office in Hettinger. His photographic prints and negatives are still held by the State Historical Society of North Dakota. Two poems, "Venus and Mars" and "Getting Married", were printed in a 1979 edition of Tamarisk. He published a collection of poems, Jackrabbit, North Dakota, in 1977, followed in 1979 by The Women's Lib, consisting of poems and photographs.

Jerome Library, Bowling Green State University

By August 1978, Severy had relocated to Ohio where he completed his graduate studies in English in 1979 at Bowling Green State University with his thesis Weather, Death, God and Sin. He and Sally would ultimately divorce, with Severy marrying a second time to Janice Kelemen in Wood, Ohio on February 2, 1979. Sally would marry again to Thomas Lewis in Los Angeles on March 24, 1984. Severy's controversy in Drake was mentioned in Nat Hentoff's book The First Freedom, intended to teach young people about censorship. Vonnegut dedicated his 1984 collection Nothing is Lost Save Honor to Severy and mentioned him and the incident during a session on censorship at the 1986 PEN Conference. Beginning in the 1980s, Severy spent two decades as a technical writer and editor, returning to California, penning the occasional letter to the editor, and ultimately losing his job in the early 2000s following the dot-com crash. After 18 months of unemployment, he published a collection of poems, Dot.Gone, as well as "Trails of Simi", both in 2003, around the time that Severy joined the Rancho Simi Trail Blazers, for which he served as Newsletter Editor from October 2003 through January 2004. He also participated in the 18th Annual Great Race of Agoura on March 22, 2003. A further poem, "The Giveaway Racks", was printed in 2005. His son, Edward Wayne Severy, was born August 22, 1995 and Severy would marry for a third time in Nevada to Diane Dolores Watters on February 19, 2005. Severy died on April 12, 2007—the day after Vonnegut himself—at the age of 59.