Sharon Olds, Poet, Declines White House Invitation

Sharon Olds, Poet, declines White House Invitation

The power of poetry

In a culture like ours, one sometimes forgets the power of a poet's
words...Here is an open letter from the poet Sharon Olds to Laura Bush
declining the invitation to read and speak at the National Book Critics
Circle Award in Washington, DC.

Feel free to forward it along if you feel more people may want to read it.
Sharon Olds is one of most widely read and critically acclaimed poets
living in America today. Read to the end of the letter to experience
her restrained, chilling eloquence.

To: 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 non moving
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 non moving (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


This exchange was forwarded to me by Marilyn Horne, who had also
turned down a similar invitation some time ago, as follows:
Brava! I did not write a letter when I was asked a few yrs. ago to
sing for the Christmas Tree lighting at the White House. I refused,
but did not go public about it. I just could not be seen as
supporting this regime. It was the first term, too.......
MARILYN HORNE