Accolades To Sharon Olds!

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.


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 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