Midd Briefs White House Passes Over Poets, Parini

Author: Edward Pickering

First Lady Laura Bush has indefinitely postponed a poetry symposium originally to be held at the White House Feb. 12 after learning several of the poets invited were planning to speak out against the impending war with Iraq. Middlebury College's D. E. Axinn Professor of Creative Writing Jay Parini received an invitation and, like many of his fellow poets, welcomed the opportunity to protest the war through verse.
Parini began composing poetry for the event but held off once informed of its postponement. He has since conducted numerous interviews about the symposium's collapse. On Feb. 11, Vermont Public Radio broadcast an interview with Parini in which he read a prepared commentary.
Parini and the other invitees received an e-mail from Sam Hamill, a poet who refused the First Lady's invitation, urging them to write poetry against the war. Said Parini on-air, "I was sympathetic to Hamill's cause, and got to work on something myself. The prospect of Mrs. Bush listening to the voice of poetry seemed like a decent notion."
In his commentary Parini cited poets in our nation's history who have engaged political issues of the their day. For example, Walt Whitman wrote against the injustice of slavery and the brutality of war, among other topics. Parini noted that at the outset of the Second World War W.H. Auden "contemplated the approaching devastation" and he quoted, " 'All I have is a voice / To undo the folded lie.' "
That Parini takes the sentiment of Auden to heart is evident from his assertion,"It is this voice, with its eerie freedom, that poets have always cherished, and for which we cherish them."