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I'm always moved when a writer puts her talent to the service of her moral beliefs:
> 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 non-speaking
> 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
> non-speaking 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
"We seem always ready to pay the price for war. Almost gladly we give our time and our treasures -- our limbs and even our lives -- for war. But we expect to get peace for nothing."
-- Peace Pilgrim
"Find out just what people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
--Frederick Douglass, African-American slave, and later abolitionist.
"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace."
-- John Lennon
> 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 non-speaking
> 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
> non-speaking 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
"We seem always ready to pay the price for war. Almost gladly we give our time and our treasures -- our limbs and even our lives -- for war. But we expect to get peace for nothing."
-- Peace Pilgrim
"Find out just what people will quietly submit to, and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them, and these will continue till they are resisted with either words or blows. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress."
--Frederick Douglass, African-American slave, and later abolitionist.
"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace."
-- John Lennon
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Armchair psychiatry, I'm afraid. I can't get angry with people who are obviously so damaged, yet I would gladly see them all get thrown in jail, just to be rid of them. But there are millions more out there just like them, which is why it's so important for people to understand human nature. It's not Republicanism, conservatism, elitism, mental illness per se, or a roving miasma of evil stalking the land. It's how we relate to each other and ourselves.
From:
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Yes, so very true. What you say makes me think of another poet, Auden, who observed the same thing. I've posted this often before, I know.
SEPTEMBER 1, 1939
W.H. Auden
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.
Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.
Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.
Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.
The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.
From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
'I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,'
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the dead,
Who can speak for the dumb?
All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
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That's brilliant.
From:
no subject
But I also feel sorry for Laura Bush, who said (perhaps too candidly) before GWB was inaugurated that if she weren't married to him, she'd probably be a Democrat. I fear that this kind of shunning (which isn't an isolated example) means that she clings closer to GWB, rather than offer him a different point of view which he desperately needs to hear. Still, that can't be helped. Olds has to be true to herself.
From:
no subject
And there's a part of me that feels that a person like Laura, who makes a choice, should be faced with the consequences of the choice, though as you and Arethusa say so well, she probably will not be able to.
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