Sharon Olds Essay

youthful façades? Do they turn on their mothers? In Sharon Olds’ poem, “The Possessive,” the reader is finally introduced to the female version of the popular coming-of-age theme as a simple

Accepting Independence Poetry is like a song without music, it has the ability to awaken your emotions and the ability to tell stories that can paint beautiful, relatable, imagery in the viewer’s mind. Upon reading the poem, “My Son the Man” by Sharon Olds, she presents a unique view on her bittersweet experience of watching her son gravitate towards manhood, “Suddenly his shoulders get a lot wider” (line1), while realizing he is astute enough to escape his mother’s strong hold, “to learn the way

Author Background: Sharon Olds was born on November 19, 1942 and raised in Berkeley, California to a strict, religious family. Her father was abusive and her mother was not protective; so much of her early life became characterized by extreme restrictions. After earning her BA from Stanford and her Ph.D from Columbia, she began writing poetry free of traditional conventions. Thus, she was able to develop her own poetry style and explored personal topics from family life to more taboo subjects such

In the poem, “35/10” by Sharon Olds, the speaker uses wistful and jealous tones to convey her feeling about her daughter’s coming of age. The speaker, a thirty-five year old woman, realizes that as the door to womanhood is opening for her ten year old daughter, it is starting to close for her. A wistful tone is used when the speaker calls herself, “the silver-haired servant” (4) behind her daughter, indicating that she wishes she was not the servant, but the served. Referring to herself as her

feeling a backlash from what everyone else thought. Two female writers who were able to freely express themselves in their writing during post-modernism were Linda Pastan and Sharon Olds. Linda Pastan talked more about her life in general like every day anxieties, her marriage, parenting, and even grief. However, Sharon Olds was a little more controversial in her writing since she often talked about sexuality and violence. Their writing styles were similar in the aspect that they both enjoyed writing

discuss the archetype of an actual father figure in poetry and the usual uses of one in two different poems from two different authors. The first poem we will venture into is “My Papa’s Waltz” by Theodore Roethke, the other is “The Victims” by Sharon Olds. Each describe a father figure and the relationship between the narrator and his father which is in turmoil. We’ll explore in some lengthy detail about the archetype of a bad father and the narrator’s take on them. Starting with “My Papa Waltz”

Human Family by Maya Angelou Juxtaposition: When two topics that are brought up together, contrast to bring out the differences in them Example: “I note the obvious differences in the human family… But we are more alike than we are unalike” Human Family, Maya Angelou, 1-2 and 35-36. Function: The speaker points out all the ways that, as humans, we are different. The way we act, the way we look, the ways we are amused, etc. They talk of how they once traveled the world and saw all the differences

long mirror, beginning to prepare her ten-year-old daughter for bed. As she works out the last few tangles from her hair, the woman’s gaze turns to her reflection—the dulling of her once youthful body palpable in the company of her youthful daughter. Author Sharon Olds uses the narrative of a mother-daughter relationship to address issues of aging, death and replacement, juxtaposing the youth of a ten-year-old with the maturity of the thirty-five-year-old. “35/10” takes readers on one woman’s journey

“The Victims” and “The Abortion”: Aim the Complexity Both Sharon Olds and Anne Sexton are two famous confessional poets in their era. Apparently, Sharon Olds and Anne Sexton have similar family background that influenced their artworks. Olds was born in unhappy family, and she often suffered abuse from her alcoholic father, so was Sexton . To overcome the depression that they have suffered, both Olds and Sexton choose writing as a therapy for their psyche. “The Victims” and “The Abortion” (reprinted

their art. Artists and poets alike use their own lives as inspiration for their works. Sharon Olds is no exception to this statement. Sharon Olds is one of the nation’s finest contemporary poets, and in order to see why Sharon Olds’s poetry is so profound, it is necessary to understand the events that shaped Sharon Olds as a person herself. These events are all featured in the majority of her writings. Sharon Olds’s strong Calvinist upbringing, her divorce, and her alcoholic father are all mirrored