Sharon Olds Critical Essay | Critical Review by G. E. Murray

Critical Review by G. E. Murray

SOURCE: "Seven Poets," in The Hudson Review, Vol. XXXIV, No. 1, Spring, 1981, pp. 155-60.

In the following excerpt, Murray discusses Olds's passionate treatment of such subjects as pain, love, and anger in Satan Says.

If there were a physics of suffering, some way to graph the pain of doubt, assessing Sharon Olds's impressive debut with Satan Says would be an easier affair. Lacking any exact science of emotions, it should be noted that Olds's harsh and shockingly truthful poems, often wrought in a strident pitch, will attract a sizeable following. The style also may rally detractors, for to an extent Olds makes poetry as if she were lancing boils and enjoying it.

With both her masks and straight faces, Olds considers herself, variously, a temptress, carnivore, daughter, victim, mother, survivor, "a murderer / selecting a weapon." Mainly in the fashion of Sylvia Plath and Ai, which is to say...
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