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September 21, 2005
I Heart Sharon Olds
Busy, busy, busy. The end of the novel is within a slippery reach right now. I think I may actually make my end-of-year deadline after all.
Thanks again to everyone who's replying to the posts here-- and if you haven't listed your iPod "most played songs" yet, skip down a couple of entries and please do so!!
One of my top-ten favorite poets of all time is Sharon Olds. There was a brief time in 1990, when I didn't know whether I wanted to pursue my poetry writing or my fiction, when I considered going to NYU, simply because she taught there. Anyone who's read the poetry I was writing back then will find it pretty obvious that I was worshipping her (one of the reasons, I guess, why I ultimately chose fiction over poetry-- I didn't feel very comfortable with my own "voice" with the latter). Anyway. Sharon Olds is in the news today, and I couldn't be happier with the reason. Seems our nation's First Lady asked her to DC for the National Book Festival. And Sharon declined the offer in a brilliantly written letter published in The Nation.
If you don't have time to read all of it, here's the end of her letter:
"...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."
CELEBRATE SHARON OLDS! Go to a bookstore today and buy one of her emotional, precise, cathartic, lovely books of poems. Each page turned = a slap in the face of the Bushes.
Posted by at September 21, 2005 07:15 PM
Comments
Sharon's great like that, no? The wonderul thing about her is that she doesn't make a big deal out of it or herself. She never mentioned it in workshop; word just gets around.
Posted by: woody at October 8, 2005 08:14 PM
There were so many times that I nearly purchased Satan Says. I saw Sharon Olds do a reading once, during which she read the title poem. My lord, she left an impression on me. Good call though, I'm definitely going to buy a collection of her work in the very near future. Good for her that she was capable of handling her situation with the First Lady in such a respectable yet powerful way and that she stood up for her beliefs, not using the opportunity to further her career by attending a White House event or whatever. I love it.
robert
Posted by: Robert at September 22, 2005 09:25 AM
hooray, sharon olds! i'm going to make sure we're stocked up on her books at the bookstore!
Posted by: liz at September 22, 2005 06:19 AM
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