Post by maryri116 on May 30, 2013 21:28:33 GMT -5
When Sharon Olds was a child, she was told that she was going to hell. Born in 1942, Olds was raised, as she words it, a “hellfire Calvanist” who worried about tainting the beautiful flowers in her mother’s garden by simply gazing at them for too long. It is an unlikely start, perhaps, for a poet who went on to write some of the most sexually explicit poems of the 20th century, one who has won an international following for her celebrations of the human as animal. In Olds' poems, humans are creatures who bleed, suck, give birth and – as she crudely words it – “f***.” "Sexual love," says Olds, "is a subject that moved me immensely. Talk about a total challenge to one's descriptive powers!"
While Olds’ work has been “lavishly praised and fiercely condemned” by Thomas Dillingham and others, its direct physicality, painful honesty, and ability to depict aspects of family life and rarely described intimate personal relationships have won it a growing fan base. However, the same qualities prompt her detractors to declare her work sensationalist, misogynistic, and arguably pornographic. Like other confessional poets, Olds explores the pain of living in dysfunctional families ands its “associated mysteries” as well as the sensuous pleasures of marital bliss. Her fascination with the dark side of family life forces the reader to inquire the source of her inspiration. Is Olds the speaker of her poems? It seems natural that she would be, since the poems take on an almost confessional sound with Olds going far enough to state, “One thing I’m really interesting in, when I’m writing, is being accurate.” Her accuracy is impeccable as she describes “the cindery lichen skin between the male breasts,” “a cream pitcher speckled with henbit and pussy-paws,” and “the feeling of falling away from family – as if each ponderous object has been keeping the body afloat.” Regardless of her accuracy, with poems like The Pope’s Penis, her compositions linger and leave an indelible image with any reader.
Readers and critics often observe a cinematic quality to each of Olds’ books; she shifts both time and space as though editing footage from the past and from the present moment, sometimes offering almost painful close-ups, other times long shots that seem to encompass the whole history of humanity. While these tactics provide variety and surprise in her books, their reoccurrences offer a monotony that negates their impact and prompts concern; a poet who is unwaveringly obsessed with body and family, whose only connections to the larger world are metaphorical, may soon find the limits of variation. Although Olds proclaims to have “stretched to infinity,” she consistently limits herself to one whose sum fails to surpass the works of a poet with wide and varied interests. In this sense, Olds not only instructs her readers on the importance of individuality, but on the importance of variety and perspective.
Newly awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry collection, Stag's Leap, Sharon Olds currently teaches creative writing at New York University
(Words: 499)
While Olds’ work has been “lavishly praised and fiercely condemned” by Thomas Dillingham and others, its direct physicality, painful honesty, and ability to depict aspects of family life and rarely described intimate personal relationships have won it a growing fan base. However, the same qualities prompt her detractors to declare her work sensationalist, misogynistic, and arguably pornographic. Like other confessional poets, Olds explores the pain of living in dysfunctional families ands its “associated mysteries” as well as the sensuous pleasures of marital bliss. Her fascination with the dark side of family life forces the reader to inquire the source of her inspiration. Is Olds the speaker of her poems? It seems natural that she would be, since the poems take on an almost confessional sound with Olds going far enough to state, “One thing I’m really interesting in, when I’m writing, is being accurate.” Her accuracy is impeccable as she describes “the cindery lichen skin between the male breasts,” “a cream pitcher speckled with henbit and pussy-paws,” and “the feeling of falling away from family – as if each ponderous object has been keeping the body afloat.” Regardless of her accuracy, with poems like The Pope’s Penis, her compositions linger and leave an indelible image with any reader.
Readers and critics often observe a cinematic quality to each of Olds’ books; she shifts both time and space as though editing footage from the past and from the present moment, sometimes offering almost painful close-ups, other times long shots that seem to encompass the whole history of humanity. While these tactics provide variety and surprise in her books, their reoccurrences offer a monotony that negates their impact and prompts concern; a poet who is unwaveringly obsessed with body and family, whose only connections to the larger world are metaphorical, may soon find the limits of variation. Although Olds proclaims to have “stretched to infinity,” she consistently limits herself to one whose sum fails to surpass the works of a poet with wide and varied interests. In this sense, Olds not only instructs her readers on the importance of individuality, but on the importance of variety and perspective.
Newly awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry collection, Stag's Leap, Sharon Olds currently teaches creative writing at New York University
(Words: 499)