Poems that changed my life
Your Monday Vitamin
In the mid-1980’s I went to a party of mostly UC Berkeley graduate students and mentioned that there were no poets currently writing that I thought were good. I was handed Sharon Olds’ The Dead and the Living that was sitting on the host’s shelf. In that book (among other wonderful poems) was a whole section of poems about Olds’ children—fresh and exciting. I really hadn’t known such poems existed. Here’s one—again hard to choose from the many.
Son
Coming hone from the women-only bar,
I go into my son’s room.
He sleeps—fine freckled face
thrown back, the scarlet lining of his mouth
shadowy and fragrant, his small teeth
glowing dull and milky in the dark,
opal eyelids quivering
like insect wings, his hands closed
in the middle of the night.
Let there be enough
room for this life: the head, lips,
throat, wrists, hips, penis,
knees, feet. Let no part go
unpraised. Into any new world we enter, let us
take this man.
from The Dead and the Living
I’ve loved Sharon and her poems since 1991, when I first attended the Community of Writers poetry workshop in Olympic Valley. She was always amazingly perceptive and generous with her responses to our newly written poem drafts. . I highly recommend “Stag’s Leap,” which won the Pulitzer. It’s about her long time husband who left her. To which I say, “Writing well is the best revenge.”
thanks Meryl - as always