No Place for a Poet at a Banquet of Shame

[Guest guest]

No Place for a Poet at a Banquet of Shame

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

 

 

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.thenation.com/doc/20051010/olds

 

 

War doesn't determine who's right. War determines who's left.