No Place for a Poet at a Banquet of Shame

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Tue, 20 Sep 2005 20:58:19 -0700 (PDT)

No Place for a Poet at a Banquet of Shame

 

 

 

 

 

No Place for a Poet at a Banquet of Shame

by Sharon Olds

 

 

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

 

 

 

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0920-29.htm