Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

Martin Farawell, Program Director, Poetry

Through nine collections of poems, Sharon Olds has turned an unflinching eye toward the ecstasies and sorrows of living in the human body. Every stage of life is meticulously observed and explored: childhood, adolescence and the awakening of sexuality, marriage, the birthing of children, divorce, the care-taking of aging parents, their deaths, and the confronting of ones own mortality.

Although a sharp observer, Olds has never allowed the fierceness of her looking to dull her compassion. Even describing acts of human cruelty, whether those of political leaders or of her own parents, it is her search for understanding that compels the reader to continue through revelations that, otherwise, might be unbearable.

In a Sharon Olds poem, attention to physical detail is the act of cherishing the world and the body in our brief moment of corporeality. Acknowledging the frailty of the body is part of this cherishing. In “Little Things,” an early poem, Olds writes, “I am/ paying attention to small beauties,/ whatever I have—as if it were our duty to/ find things to love, to bind ourselves to this world.”

While many of us might allow fear and shame to censor what we are willing to discover or reveal, Olds refuses to be so limited. It is as if for her fear and shame are absolutely reliable signals: Something is hidden behind them that we must explore if we are ever to understand our true selves. The deeper the fear or shame, the more tenaciously she will insist on exploring further.

So it is no surprise that Olds should be inspired by Neruda to write odes on such elemental subjects as “Poem for the Breasts” and “Ode to the Hymen.” Her odes, like all her poems, are unrelentingly inquisitive and tender. What may surprise some of her readers is her great sense of humor and obvious delight in sharing it.

Sharon Olds’ most recent collection is One Secret Thing. For a generous selection of poems from her first six books, see Strike Sparks: Selected Poems, 1980-2002.

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Martin Farawell, Program Director, Poetry

If the word “ode” summons up strains of Beethoven or lines from the English Romantics, listen to Sharon Olds’ “Ode to a Composting Toilet” and “Ode to a Tampon” for a brief introduction to how radically poets have re-visioned the form in the last century.

Pablo Neruda’s Odas Elementales popularized the idea that an ode could be addressed to anything: socks, artichokes, salt, a typewriter. Many contemporary poets, including Erica Jong, Robert Pinsky and Kevin Young to name a few, have followed Neruda’s example and written odes to such mundane subjects as television, shoes and catfish.

Through nine collections of poems, Sharon Olds has turned an unflinching eye toward the ecstasies and sorrows of living in the human body. While many of us allow fear and shame to limit what we are willing to discover or reveal, Olds refuses to be so limited. It is as if for her fear and shame were absolutely reliable signals that we are being warned away from approaching something we must explore. The deeper the fear or shame, the more tenaciously she will insist on exploring further.

So it is no surprise that Olds should be inspired by Neruda to write odes on such elemental subjects. Her odes, like all her poems, are unrelentingly inquisitive and tender. Olds has never allowed the fierceness of her looking to dull her compassion. What may surprise some of her readers is her great sense of humor and obvious delight in sharing it.

Sharon Olds’ most recent collection is One Secret Thing. For a generous selection of poems from her earlier books, see Strike Sparks: Selected Poems, 1980-2002 . Visit the 2008 Dodge Poetry Festival Poet Pages for a biography of Sharon Olds.

Be sure to return for upcoming Poetry Fridays, when we will feature many poets from past Dodge Poetry Festivals in the weeks ahead, including Linda Pastan, C. D. Wright and others.