<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1555" name=GENERATOR>
<STYLE></STYLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY bgColor=#c0c0c0>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dear Visionaries,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>In the wake of a wonderful CommUnity Walk, I came
back to my office to catch up on some work and a friend has forwarded this. She
tells me that Sharon Olds wrote the letter reproduced below in response to an
invitation to the National Book Critics Circle Award festivities a couple of
years ago in Washington, D.C.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I was so pleased with our community today and
then thought about brave American men and women half a world away and the
people of Iraq and immediately descended into a blue funk... Thank you to all
the regular Friday peace witnesses of Friendship Square.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>This is my Saturday contribution... in the words of
T.S. Eliot, "April is the crulest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead
land..." And this year, even the lilacs are late.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>All the best, anyway,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Linda </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2>Laura Bush<BR>First Lady, The White House<BR><BR>Dear Mrs.
Bush,<BR>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.<BR><BR>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 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.<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>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.<BR><BR>Sincerely,<BR>SHARON
OLDS</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>