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

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”

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

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

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

Sharon Olds contrasts the two different worlds of a white lady and black male throughout On the Subway. Olds utilizes plenty imagery, tone and unusual syntax to contrast opposite worlds within the white lady and the black male. Olds first creates imagery within the first couple of lines. “His feet are huge, in black sneakers laced with white in a complex pattern like a set of intentional scars.”Comparing the man’s shoe laces to “intentional scars” is a way she used imagery to develop an idea of the

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

In the poem"On the Subway", Sharon Olds uses Caucasians and African-Americans. The Olds uses symbolism and tone, as imagery devices. Olds uses imagery in the first part of the poem by inhansing the differences between the one that is riding the subway, which is a white woman, and an African-American. The poet says how the man's shoes are "laced with white". Olds does this to show reality revolves around whites. Also, she says how the "intentional scars" are left over by the treatment whites bunch

Duc Tran ENGL 111 10/7/2015 Rite of Passage (1983) – Sharon Olds As the guests arrive at my son 's party they gather in the living room-- short men, men in first grade with smooth jaws and chins. Hands in pockets, they stand around jostling, jockeying for place, small fights breaking out and calming. One says to another How old are you? Six. I 'm seven. So? They eye each other, seeing themselves tiny in the other 's pupils. They clear their throats a lot, a room of small bankers, they fold

Sharon Olds writes extensively on family and relationships, addressing the many roles of the woman: mother, daughter, and lover – roles and experiences that she addresses candidly in a relatable and near-confessional manner through defamiliarization, candid description, and imagery. Readers take these simple examples to heart, visualizing and understanding each scenario Olds describes, ultimately able to relate. Assuming the narrator of the poems included in Part III of her 1983 collection of poems

Sharon Olds was born in San Francisco on November 19, 1942. At age fifteen, she was sent to a boarding school in Massachusetts. Many of her poems focus on difficult childhood and the body. As Olivia Laing, literary critic of several literary novels and publications, says, “The physical body is a document of being, physical experience is the primary mode of forming, and physical contact is the primary human relationship.” Like Whitman, Olds celebrates the body in its pleasures and pains. She is a

In “The Victims” by Sharon Olds it describes a divorce through the eyes of the parents’ children. The first section is shown through past tense as the speaker is a child and the last section is shown in present tense with the speaker already being an adult trying to make sense of past events. The word “it” in the first two lines carries a tremendous weight, hinting at the ever so present abuse and mistreatment, but remaining non-specific. The first part generates a negative tone toward the father

Unborn”, and “The Clasp”, Sharon Olds demonstrates her ability to portray real life problems through generalized speech to show family problems that lead to unhappiness. Throughout these poems, she makes the reader empathize with her and feel as if the poem is speaking directly to them instead of it being just the situations that she has gone through. In order to achieve this, Olds uses an honest tone to portray her common theme of pain by aloneness, abuse and loss. Sharon Olds was born on November 19

American person. The author, Sharon olds, made this essay to compare and contrast both of them. Sharon olds uses a lot of poetic devices, imagery, and traditional racial stereotypes. Sharon uses a lot of imagery in this poem, she uses most of vividly dark and light as well as animal imagery to contrast her two characters. The whole skin of an animal taken and used shows that the boy represents the inside of an animal, and the speaker represents the outside. Sharon olds utilities a lot of racial stereotypes

In the passage, “On The Subway”, Sharon Olds reveals about the character’s qualities. Sharon Olds, the poet of the poem, allows the reader to get to know the character by using literary devices. For example, the poet utilizes metaphors/similes and imagery, to reveal so much about her, the character herself does not know about. First of all, metaphors and similes are when there are different ideas of precise qualities being compared to something else, to represent the value of it. “Black sneakers

First Thanksgiving The poem First thanksgiving by Sharon Olds is a fascinating and personal poem about a nostalgic mother eagerly anticipating the next time her daughter will come home from college. The author’s natural ability to connect with the reader and make the reader feel for the nostalgic mother is impressive to say the least. This is possible through the uses of literary devices such as Imagery and Seasonal Symbolism. These literary devices are implemented into the story in order to grasp

“The Glass” by Sharon Olds is an autobiographical piece which outlined one of the most memorable events for the author as she witnessed her father dying of cancer. Although the poem is about her father, her father is placed as an auxiliary character to the glass that he continuously spits up his phlegm and mucus into. The contents of the glass are described in gruesome detail while her father is slowly withering away beside it quietly. The author had a tumultuous relationship with her father as he