A Poet Makes A Choice!

Sharon Olds has declined to attend the National Book Festival in Washington. She admits that reading her poetry and speaking to such a large audience (35000 people are expected) would have been an opportunity, and that participating in a community of writers is dear to her heart, but that participating in this Festival would be an implicit endorsement of the Bush led war against Iraq.

Olds, winner of a National Book Critics Circle Award and professor of creative writing at New York University, was invited along with a number of other writers by First Lady Laura Bush to read from their works. Three years ago artist Jules Feiffer declined to attend the festival's White House breakfast as a protest against the Iraq War