Summer Solstice Poem

“Summer Solstice, New York City” by Sharon Olds is told in her perspective, one that is witnessing a potential suicide at the end of the longest day of the year. The victim is attempting to jump off the side of, what can be assumed to be, a neighboring building and the speaker believes that the man has finally reached his breaking point. Through the act of almost jumping off, to then being saved by the police, the victim is able to gain composure and leave his old life behind. His life that had led him to the edge of the building, potentially ending his life. Olds expresses the idea of a suicide that is prevented as the beginning of an end to an old life. The beginning of the poem is started off by describing the “end” of the day, whereas the end of the poem is the speaker making a comparison to the …show more content…
Olds tells the poem in third person to focus on observing the situation at hand and analyzing the victim for his actions. She makes an analogy to that of a mother punishing her child for having bad behavior, in comparison to how she expected that the police would “beat him up”(31). Olds use of the word child further develops the victims new beginning. She compares the man to a child to show that a new life has started for him. He is not an old man whose troubles led him to almost making a horrible decision, but a child who still has much to live for their life and can learn from their mistakes. She recounts the situation, describing how it unfolds, however almost the entirety of the poem is about the suicide victim. There is a shift from the beginning of the poem, from the use of “his” and “their”, to later in the poem using “I” and “we”. She does this to gradually build up that, even though she is only watching, she is apart of the