WEDNESDAYS WITH DENISE
October 5, 2022
Sharon Olds’ latest book BALLADZ was published yesterday. It is a tour de force of mature, startling, haunting poems that reach over time from the speaker’s childhood to the recent pandemic, from first loves to present day romance and loss, concluding with a series of wise, powerful elegies. The book also plays homage to poetic lineage, most notably a suite of poems in conversation with Emily Dickinson. Olds also acknowledges a slew of poetry friendships and their sustaining power. Here is just one example in which she writes a poem “like a mate for Galway’s ‘Bear.’”
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/12/a-song-near-the-end-of-the-world
And here is the late Galway Kinnell’s poem:
https://poets.org/poem/bear
Congratulations, Sharon!
In the photo above, Sharon Olds (right), David Lehman (center), and Gerald Stern (left) prior to the "Best American Poetry" launch reading of 2010. Photo credit: Lawrence Schwartzwald.