Catch Hold Of Selected Poems Drafted By Sharon Olds Delivered In Leaflet

want to live I take them up like the male and female paper dolls and bang them together at the hips like chips of flint as if to strike sparks from them I sayDo what you are

going to do and I will tell about it”Kate Clanchy is uoted on the back of this book saying 'Olds remains too little known in the UKreaders new to her will be astounded' Well this UK citizen couldn't agree From 'Indictment Of Senior Officers' I was instantly dazzled and in awe of Olds hold on words Exuisitely perfected each word sizzles and sparks with delight akin to that of my initial feeling discovering this truly gifted poet It's clear how much Olds personal experiences have made a lasting impact on her poems especially the death of her Father which make her pieces all the haunting Each line is woven with passion and fire as well as a delicacy that I'm fueled to write page after page trying to achieve Her poems are lovely like fine ribbons little stories she can choose to make either delightful and pleasant or brutal and unforgiving but always undoubtedly moving and memorable Her choice of words in each are carefully selected so that each line reverberates page after page Sensational An incredibly underrated poet Anyone who feels slightly uninspired should go read this lady now “I wonder now only when it will happenwhen the young mother will hear the noise like somebody's pressure cooker down the block going off She'll go out on the yardholding her small daughter in her armsand there above the end of the street in the air above the line of the tressshe will see it rising lifting upover the horizon the upper rim of thegold ball large as a giantplanet starting to lift up over oursShe will stand there in the yard holding her daughterlooking at it rise and grow and blossom and riseand the child will open her arms to itit will look so beautiful”Read for poetry book club JuneWith simple construction and straightforward clarity her poems are beautiful in a matter of fact way They have good bones raw and real i keep Wanting to Love Sharon olds and then i dont and some of her poems areand some of her poems i find subtly problematic under the guise of being intimate and personal and confessional like maybe you didnt have to publish that I Dont Knowat least bc this is selected works throughout her life u can see her development in these writings lol i can recognise how good she is just a lot of them dont Tie me so Emotiknally and Closely like i want poetry To Do also a lot of sexually explicit stuff about how Men Are Incredible And The Best and I am a Woman and I am My Mother he is My Father How he Sweats He is My God His Penis and my Dad and also his Penis i found kinda odd to Read and Perhaps im not used to reading stuff like it I feel i will like her inyears cause of all the mother poetry also which for a lot of i just switch off at haha bc unrealtion I was first introduced to the work of Sharon Olds when I heard one of her poems in the 'Into the Wild' film In fact she worked closely with Sean Penn and Carine when making it I immediately looked up the author and ordered a copy of 'The Gold Cell' from a bookstoreFast forward a few years and this book fell into my hands Again I was in love with her workI don't read a lot of poetry never have done And a friend recently asked what this poet Sharon Olds wrote about I didn't really know how to respond I went for the word 'life'Sharon has the ability to put you right in her shoes You picture her sat there writing down the words for the first time You see her mind racing you see her getting her thoughts down on paper as pure as the reality capturing that moment and letting it live forever in one of her books You are tossed about You live and breath her work You sigh and you cry You feelAnd for me a person that doesn't read much poetry that is what poetry should be about That is art And that is Sharon OldsThis collection is a great introduction to her work but I feel one would benefit by ordering one of her singular collections Have a look at 'The Gold Cell' or 'The Father' as they were my favourite poems in this book Shockingly corporeal poetry that makes you recoil at its intimacy and yet compelling Serious stuff but not taking itself too seriously I tender The Pope's Penis as an example Sharon Olds eschews formal poetic forms and writes primarily about her own life She seems to me to follow in the tradition of Robert Lowell I find her poems very powerful and readable but surprisingly unuotable I liked this greatest hits less than the magnificent Stag's Leap for which she won the Pullitzer prize and the T S Eliot Prize That book told the story of her divorce and I find her most powerful when she tells a story in a seuence of poems I'm now reading The Dead and the Living which has coherence than the selected poems Searing honest lyrical and shocking Olds is a deserving winner of the TS Eliot prize looking forward to reading Stag's Leap Highly recommend this selection as an introduction to her work As raw self obsessed and self aware as Frida Kahlo And way ahead of her time Michael Ondaatje has called Sharon Olds's poetry 'pure fire in the hands' and cheered the 'roughness and humour and brag and tenderness and completion in her work as she carries the reader through rooms of passion and loss' This rich selection made by the author exhibits those ualities in poem after poem reflecting over an exciting experimentation with rhythm and language and a movement toward an embrace beyond the personal Subjects are revisited the pain of childhood adolescent sexual stirrings the fulfilment of marriage the wonder of children but each re casting penetrates ever deeply enriched by new perceptions and conceitsA powerful distillation of the best work from one of America's most gifted and widely read poets drawn from her seven published volumes this is a testament to a remarkable writer's depth range and continuing developmentBorn in San Francisco on NovemberSharon Olds earned a BA at Stanford University and a PhD at Columbia UniversityHer first collection of poems Satan Saysreceived the inaugural San Francisco Poetry Center Award Olds's following collection The Dead the Livingreceived the Lamont Poetry Selection inand the National Book Critics Circle AwardHer other collect.