Sharon Olds is like your sweet next-door neighbor, the one who brings you plum jelly every year and collects your mail while you're away, and then one day reveals over coffee that her sister used to squat over her in bed and pee in her face.

What a collection! All of it is memorable, from the first harrowing poems about world politics through the last sweet (though probably embarrassing) ones about her children's blooming sexuality. I especially enjoyed the times when she'd run a series of poems along a theme, even using the same subject and the same occurrences, but changing the delivery in subtle ways. I never would have guessed saying the same thing twice could seem so original!