{"id":1232,"date":"2005-09-21T10:28:43","date_gmt":"2005-09-21T17:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2005\/09\/poet_tells_laura_to_fuck_off\/"},"modified":"2005-09-21T10:28:43","modified_gmt":"2005-09-21T17:28:43","slug":"poet_tells_laura_to_fuck_off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2005\/09\/poet_tells_laura_to_fuck_off.html","title":{"rendered":"POET TELLS LAURA TO FUCK OFF"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As you probably know by now, the poet Sharon Olds has turned down Laura Bush&#8217;s invitation to this weekend&#8217;s National Book Festival in Washington and &#8212; &#8220;more better&#8221; (in the mortal words of  the Bullshitter-in-Chief) &#8212; a chance to dine with the bullshitter&#8217;s wife-in-chief.<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.griffinpoetryprize.com\/galleries.php?t=5\" class=inline target=new\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Sharon Olds.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.griffinpoetryprize.com\/images\/gpp2003\/judge-olds.jpg\" width=140 align=left border=0 \/><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thenation.com\/doc\/20051010\/olds\" class=inline target=new\"><strong><font color=#003399>Olds writes<\/font><\/strong><\/a>, protesting the war in Iraq and the regime&#8217;s attack on human rights, &#8220;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.&#8221;  Olds says she couldn&#8217;t help thinking she &#8220;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 &#8216;extraordinary rendition&#8217;: flying people to other countries where they will be tortured for us.&#8221;<br \/>\nShe adds: &#8220;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.&#8221; Hell, even Americans like us, who long ago lost their pride in the U.S. of A. (remember Vietnam?), feel shamed and anguished.<br \/>\n<i>&#8212; Tireless Staff of Thousands<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As you probably know by now, the poet Sharon Olds has turned down Laura Bush&#8217;s invitation to this weekend&#8217;s National Book Festival in Washington and &#8212; &#8220;more better&#8221; (in the mortal words of the Bullshitter-in-Chief) &#8212; a chance to dine with the bullshitter&#8217;s wife-in-chief. Olds writes, protesting the war in Iraq and the regime&#8217;s attack [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-jS","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1232\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}