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SOCIAL JUSTICE & POETRY
When Poet Robert Lowell Opposed the Vietnam War
Poets can make a difference
It was in June 1965 that President Lyndon Johnson convened his “White House Festival of the Arts.” Robert Lowell, the 1946 Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry, was one of the artist invited. Lowell, a very popular and well known poet, declined the invite. He expressed his reasons in a letter to the President.
Lowell’s objection related to Johnson’s policies regarding the war in Vietnam:
Dear President Johnson
When I was telephoned last week and asked to read at the White House Festival of the Arts on June fourteenth, I am afraid I accepted somewhat rapidly and greedily. I thought of such an occasion as a purely artistic flourish, even though every serious artist knows that he cannot enjoy public celebration without making subtle public commitments. After a week’s wondering, I have decided that I am conscience-bound to refuse your courteous invitation. I do so now in a public letter because my acceptance has been announced in the newspapers and because of the strangeness of the Administration’s recent actions. Although I am very enthusiastic about most of your domestic legislation and intentions, I nevertheless can only follow our present foreign policy with the greatest dismay and…
