[Journalists] Too good to keep to myself

[Deborah Kendrick]

>
>
>No Place for a Poet at a Banquet of Shame
>by SHARON OLDS
>
>[from the October 10, 2005 issue The Nation]
>
>For reasons spelled out below, the poet Sharon Olds has declined to attend
>the National Book Festival in Washington, which, coincidentally or not,
>takes place September 24, the day of an antiwar mobilization in the
>capital. Olds, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award and
>professor of creative writing at New York University, was invited along
>with a number of other writers by First Lady Laura Bush to read from their
>works. Three years ago artist Jules Feiffer declined to attend the
>festival's White House breakfast as a protest against the Iraq War ("Mr.
>Feiffer Regrets," November 11, 2002). We suggest that invitees to this
>year's event consider following their example.--The Editors
>
>  Laura Bush
>  First Lady
>  The White House
>
>  Dear Mrs. Bush,
>
>  I am writing to let you know why I am not able to accept your kind
> invitation to give a presentation at the National Book Festival on
> September 24, or to attend your dinner at the Library of Congress or the
> breakfast at the White House.
>
>  In one way, it's a very appealing invitation. The idea of speaking at a
> festival attended by 85,000 people is inspiring! The possibility of
> finding new readers is exciting for a poet in personal terms, and in
> terms of the desire that poetry serve its constituents--all of us who
> need the pleasure, and the inner and outer news, it delivers.
>
>  And the concept of a community of readers and writers has long been dear
> to my heart. As a professor of creative writing in the graduate school of
> a major university, I have had the chance to be a part of some
> magnificent outreach writing workshops in which our students have become
> teachers. Over the years, they have taught in a variety of settings: a
> women's prison, several New York City public high schools, an oncology
> ward for children. Our initial program, at a 900-bed state hospital for
> the severely physically challenged, has been running now for twenty
> years, creating along the way lasting friendships between young MFA
> candidates and their students--long-term residents at the hospital who,
> in their humor, courage and wisdom, become our teachers.
>
>  When you have witnessed someone nonspeaking and almost nonmoving spell
> out, with a toe, on a big plastic alphabet chart, letter by letter, his
> new poem, you have experienced, close up, the passion and essentialness
> of writing. When you have held up a small cardboard alphabet card for a
> writer who is completely nonspeaking and nonmoving (except for the eyes),
> and pointed first to the A, then the B, then C, then D, until you get to
> the first letter of the first word of the first line of the poem she has
> been composing in her head all week, and she lifts her eyes when that
> letter is touched to say yes, you feel with a fresh immediacy the human
> drive for creation, self-expression, accuracy, honesty and wit--and the
> importance of writing, which celebrates the value of each person's unique
> story and song.
>
>  So the prospect of a festival of books seemed wonderful to me. I thought
> of the opportunity to talk about how to start up an outreach program. I
> thought of the chance to sell some books, sign some books and meet some
> of the citizens of Washington, DC. I thought that I could try to find a
> way, even as your guest, with respect, to speak about my deep feeling
> that we should not have invaded Iraq, and to declare my belief that the
> wish to invade another culture and another country--with the resultant
> loss of life and limb for our brave soldiers, and for the noncombatants
> in their home terrain--did not come out of our democracy but was instead
> a decision made "at the top" and forced on the people by distorted
> language, and by untruths. I hoped to express the fear that we have begun
> to live in the shadows of tyranny and religious chauvinism--the opposites
> of the liberty, tolerance and diversity our nation aspires to.
>
>  I tried to see my way clear to attend the festival in order to bear
> witness--as an American who loves her country and its principles and its
> writing--against this undeclared and devastating war.
>
>  But I could not face the idea of breaking bread with you. I knew that if
> I sat down to eat with you, it would feel to me as if I were condoning
> what I see to be the wild, highhanded actions of the Bush Administration.
>
>  What kept coming to the fore of my mind was that I would be taking food
> from the hand of the First Lady who represents the Administration that
> unleashed this war and that wills its continuation, even to the extent of
> permitting "extraordinary rendition": flying people to other countries
> where they will be tortured for us.
>
>  So many Americans who had felt pride in our country now feel anguish and
> shame, for the current regime of blood, wounds and fire. I thought of the
> clean linens at your table, the shining knives and the flames of the
> candles, and I could not stomach it.
>
>  Sincerely,
>  SHARON OLDS
>
>_________________________________________________________________