I Go Back to May 1937 | Literary Criticism & Book Review

I Go Back to May 1937 Critical Overview

"I Go Back to May 1937" is included in Olds's collection The Gold Cell. Reception of Olds's poems is often mixed, including reception for The Gold Cell. While individual poems from a collection are rarely singled out for comment in a review of the book, Terri Brown-Davidson does comment specifically on "I Go Back to May 1937" in a review of The Gold Cell for the Hollins Critic. Brown-Davidson refers to the first dozen lines of the poem as "disturbing," not because of the poem's intensity or topic, but because the critic finds the poem "formulaic." Brown-Davidson sug- gests that Olds is not taking chances with her poetry, and is instead refusing "to push beyond the boundaries to grow and keep growing." The critic argues that Olds's poetry is "belabored" and "overdramatic," and that "I Go Back to May 1937" is "fossilized." Brown-Davidson's primary criticism focuses on what the...
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