From Sharon Olds—a stunning new collection of poems that project a fresh spirit, a startling energy of language and counterpoint, and a movin...
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reviews
May 22, 2011
Diane
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Sometimes Sharon is right there and sometimes I want to say, "Oh come on now."
She really has the ability to get under the reader's skin. 1954 is a stunning piece of work because it is about something outside of the experience of the writer and she brings you right there to that horrible crime through her experience. I didn't learn anything from some of her poems, such as Sometimes, which was very personal. Same with Ssshh. I loved The Defense, which was personal but so much mor More...
She really has the ability to get under the reader's skin. 1954 is a stunning piece of work because it is about something outside of the experience of the writer and she brings you right there to that horrible crime through her experience. I didn't learn anything from some of her poems, such as Sometimes, which was very personal. Same with Ssshh. I loved The Defense, which was personal but so much mor More...
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Feb 02, 2008
Rick
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Disappointing collection from Olds. There is something close to perfunctory in these poems. Olds made her reputation with frank poems about lust, love, and family that unearthed the mythic drama in these domestic details. Here, even when she is writing about intimacies with her expected frankness there doesn’t seem much motivation or inspiration behind them. The language is pedestrian, the telling prosaic.
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Jan 21, 2009
Jennifer
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I've had a passing acquaintance with Olds for a long while (this has rambled around in my head for most of the last year, at certain appropriate moments), but when I read the first poem standing in the aisle at Powell's City of Books, I had to sit down there, books and scarf and coat and bag sprawled out around me, feeling like she'd reached into my chest and squeezed my heart in her fist. I read the rest of the volume on a long, meandering walk on Sauvie Island a few days later, and it didn't q
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Dec 16, 2009
Lizzy
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I mean, there's writing about the body and then there's writing about the body. So maybe neither is my thing.
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Nov 20, 2010
Texx
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Sharon Olds is just great. As a man, I find her writing very revealing of the feminine mind. She is so open and revealing I was almost uncomfortable. There is one poem in this work about making love after hearing someone in her apartment complex had been raped. This is a powerful collection of Sharon Olds work, and from now on the word Olds is not going to bring the OLD to my mind, it is going to bring memories of what a wonderful collection of poems this is. I’ll be re-reading this work, a
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Oct 28, 2009
Suzanne
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I'm sort of embarrassed to say that I didn't think this book was amazing. And I vowed when I started this Good Reads thing that I wouldn't rate or write about books I don't love... the site is called "Good Reads" after all. But somehow I feel compelled to work this out a bit. As a feminist and poet(tess) I'm supposed to LOVE Sharon Olds, right? I'm supposed to consider her my foremother and re-read everything of hers in all contexts, right? I do remember finding her anthologized
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May 30, 2008
Schuyler
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There are some really shining lines in this collection, and I enjoyed maybe five or six poems in there entirety. But as a whole, it didn't hold up for me. She tended to see-saw in and out of a narrative voice from poem to poem, and sometimes even within a poem and that tended to distract me and give me an overall sense of disconnection. But maybe I shouldn't be reviewing it as whole, maybe for poetry that isn't fair, since each poem should/can stand alone. My grasp on poetry is still fairly
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Nov 06, 2009
Cristy
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I really like her language, and a lot of the poems speak to me, but... there's just so much sex. Sooooo much sexxxx. Just a little too much. I felt like every other poem had at least a few lines about it. And I get that sex is supposed to be inspiring and poetic, etcetera, etcetera, but. It was just a little too much. That's why I give this book a four stars.
Dec 22, 2008
Kevin
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Poems about the human body and the fluids it's comprised of and the horrible things that happen to it. Feels like it was cathartic for the author to write; it sounds like she's had some tough times and it's important to bear witness to those moments, but I prefer poetry that looks up, not down.
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Jul 13, 2009
Emily
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Sharon Olds, where have you been all my life?! Oh, right: On my bookshelf.
I loved these poems just as much as I loved Satan Says when I first started reading her 10 years ago (oh jezischrist I feel old).
I loved these poems just as much as I loved Satan Says when I first started reading her 10 years ago (oh jezischrist I feel old).
Jul 25, 2009
Kate
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someone once gave me a copy of the "the dead and the living" and told me it reminded her of me. i was a little hurt, feeling misunderstood, and also a little furious. so i ignored sharon olds beyond that first experience. today i bought a copy of "blood, tin, straw" and have fallen in love a little bit. maybe she meant honest, subversive, and in a perfect pitch. ugly, at times, perhaps, but olds has courage.
Jan 20, 2008
W.B.
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I thought she sort of moved further away from writing what's almost lineated prose and closer to poetry with a lot of these poems. The reviewers here seem to disagree with that. An Olds collection will usually have a few stunners (the opening poem about killing your lover if he or she requests in old age or infirmity is pretty raw and memorable), a decent amount of fairly strong writing and then several truly cringeworthy poems. This book's no exception to that rule. That much said, I would reco
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Aug 10, 2010
Audra (Unabridged Chick)
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Honestly, I'm not super discerning when it comes to poetry, so I was pretty enthralled by this volume, which is very blunt, visceral, confessional, and intimate. However, when I read Anis Shivani's piece in the Huffington Post on overrated writers, I definitely laughed at: "Childbirth, her father's penis, her son's cock, and her daughter's vagina are repeated obsessions she can always count on in a pinch. Has given confessionalism such a bad name it can't possibly recover." Kind of t
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Apr 04, 2009
Kristin
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I have great respect for Olds as a poet, but I found this collection of work to be inaccessible. Part of it had to do with language: her use of scientific terms pertaining to plants and the body throughout broke the flow of many poems for me as a reader. The other part had to do with the subject matter: I can only read so many poems about heterosexual sex. Although I understand that what I disliked are just elements of Olds' distinct voice and style as a writer, there wasn't enough variation fo
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Oct 17, 2008
I'm conflicted about this poet, which is why the book has no rating, although I disliked most of it. I like Olds' form and phrasing. But I abhor about 98% of her subject matter and sentiment, which is somewhat tired and trite. Or at least it wildly diverges from how I feel about femininity, and it's rooted in a sexual perspective that's older than my mother.
However...if I come across more of her poems that somehow manage NOT to incorporate her cervix, I'd read them.
However...if I come across more of her poems that somehow manage NOT to incorporate her cervix, I'd read them.
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Feb 03, 2008
Terrell
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In three brief chapters Olds captures the readers’ imaginations. In Poem to the Reader she
relives her childhood, remembering when as a child she’d stare into the mirror
contemplating not what she’d be as an adult but what was she as a child. This maturity as a child is instilled in the adult who in After the Rape in Our Building ponders the vitality of sperm in a condom after having intercourse.
relives her childhood, remembering when as a child she’d stare into the mirror
contemplating not what she’d be as an adult but what was she as a child. This maturity as a child is instilled in the adult who in After the Rape in Our Building ponders the vitality of sperm in a condom after having intercourse.
Feb 19, 2008
Alicia
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Sharon Olds can do no wrong. This is her most gritty book. Even she will admit that. She said that to me when I got her to sign it back in 2003. It was a magnificent thing for me - to hear her read, to meet her, to have her sign my favorite book. If you want to be rattled, awed and inspired, read this!
Jun 15, 2008
Annika
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I love Sharon Olds' poetry and this is a great collection. Maybe not for all of the dudes out there (a lot of vagina/giving birth references), but I would challenge everyone who likes good, solid, evocative poetry to read this. It is captivating.
Nov 22, 2009
Emily
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Thought I would be more impressed than I was. Olds is a little too visceral and vague for me - an unsettling combination. Granted, poetry is subjective; read at your own risk.
Apr 25, 2011
Lissa
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From "The Promise" to "The Knowing", every word of this collection is poised on the knife-edge of observed truth. A read that leaves you raw and balmed.
Dec 17, 2009
Rachel
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Olds writes with such rage against her father but with such love about her spouse and always with such brutal clarity.
Feb 09, 2012
