The Accomplished and Daring Life of Sharon Olds
“When Mother divorced you, we were glad.” (The Victims) Even in this single line from Sharon Olds’s, “The Victims,” one can immediately grasp the loaded emotion and implications through her simple word choice and “…intensely personal voice….” (Gale) Her “…strength as a poet lies in her persistent and frank use of erotic imagery...she writes about pain, anger, violence, death, and love” (Stone) and “…has been linked with the confessional poets of the mid-twentieth century….” (Bridgford) Sharon Olds is a contemporary American poet whose work has landed her numerous awards, teaching positions, and praise from all types of readers and will forever be recognized for her honest and riveting literary achievements. Now married with two children, Sharon Olds’s life started on November, 19th of 1942 in San Francisco, California. (Hsiao) Her upbringing was tumultuous from the beginning due to her “…father’s alcoholism” and “…her parents’ marital unhappiness….” (Hsiao) …show more content…
Her second book, The Dead and the Living (1984) “…was the Lamont Poetry Selection for 1983 and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Poetry in 1984….” (Bridgford) Her next major work, The Gold Cell, came in 1987 and “…cemented Olds’s reputation as an intimate and often shocking poet….” (Bridgford) Over time she has churned out numerous books, poems, and contributions to anthologies that have marked her work for being “…remarkable for its candor, its eroticism, and its power to move.” (Sharon) One such noted work is The Father (1992) which “…chronicles the death of Olds’s father from cancer.” (Bridgford) One critic exclaimed “that the collection, ‘amounts to something close to a spiritual ordeal for the reader, for the poems are wrenching in their candor and detail.’” (Sharon) Some even considered The Father to be “…Olds’s most important work to date.”
“When Mother divorced you, we were glad.” (The Victims) Even in this single line from Sharon Olds’s, “The Victims,” one can immediately grasp the loaded emotion and implications through her simple word choice and “…intensely personal voice….” (Gale) Her “…strength as a poet lies in her persistent and frank use of erotic imagery...she writes about pain, anger, violence, death, and love” (Stone) and “…has been linked with the confessional poets of the mid-twentieth century….” (Bridgford) Sharon Olds is a contemporary American poet whose work has landed her numerous awards, teaching positions, and praise from all types of readers and will forever be recognized for her honest and riveting literary achievements. Now married with two children, Sharon Olds’s life started on November, 19th of 1942 in San Francisco, California. (Hsiao) Her upbringing was tumultuous from the beginning due to her “…father’s alcoholism” and “…her parents’ marital unhappiness….” (Hsiao) …show more content…
Her second book, The Dead and the Living (1984) “…was the Lamont Poetry Selection for 1983 and the National Book Critics’ Circle Award for Poetry in 1984….” (Bridgford) Her next major work, The Gold Cell, came in 1987 and “…cemented Olds’s reputation as an intimate and often shocking poet….” (Bridgford) Over time she has churned out numerous books, poems, and contributions to anthologies that have marked her work for being “…remarkable for its candor, its eroticism, and its power to move.” (Sharon) One such noted work is The Father (1992) which “…chronicles the death of Olds’s father from cancer.” (Bridgford) One critic exclaimed “that the collection, ‘amounts to something close to a spiritual ordeal for the reader, for the poems are wrenching in their candor and detail.’” (Sharon) Some even considered The Father to be “…Olds’s most important work to date.”