Stag's Leap: Poems

I've now reread Stag's Leap. Stunning, moving poems, but painful. As before, I became impatient. I wanted Olds to express more rage, and then I wanted her to let go, move on. But these poems aren't about wallowing in sorrow--for me, they describe the slow struggle to accept a difficult transition. After the grief of a divorce, some women look back to express gratitude for the loss--better off without him! Olds, however, writes from a position of tenderness. The most rewarding poems are in the last section, "Years Later," where Olds describes a weary sense of resolution--the "old love for him like a songbird's rib cage picked clean." And, though I might wish for a rousing, feminist victory cry, the resolution Olds describes is more credible and more satisfying.

The poems are very personal but powerful with elegant language and allusions to the classics. We read Stag's Leap in our Tuesday Morning Book Group. Our instructor, Dr. Emily Auerbach, converted the poem Tiny Siren to prose which we read out loud. We then read the poem as written and the difference was astounding. As a poem each word was infused with meaning and we felt intimate with the words. As prose it was as if the psychic distance was huge and the meaning more illusive.Yet, I also wanted to know his side of the story. Olds' gives us the impression she was completely innocent and surprised by her husband finding someone else. In thirty years time people do drift apart but it is rarely a surprise.Everyone that has experienced grief should read Stag's Leap.

No matter what age, it seems that if you've gone through divorce and you're a poetry lover, you should pick up this book. Olds is truly a master at capturing some of the most minute nuances of a long-time marriage grown tired (and eventually undone). But, what she does so brilliantly is capture how these details end up impacting the speaker's consciousness, pushing her into a new life, like it or not. Recognizing and accepting that unrequited love is terribly true and can happen after having made a life with someone is at the heart of these poems. At times, this collection is difficult to read because its subject matter is honest and sad. Mostly, though, it's a necessary read. To enter into the speaker's journey in this book is to understand that you are about to feel a love story after the fire and newness have settled. And then, there will be a yanking.

I usually struggle with freer verse forms: Lawrence and Plath and Eliot hold me, not much else. I'm suspicious of the confessional mode too as a rule. But this book breaks right through my old fashioned notions, and pulls me right into the authors emotions, or presentation of emotion. She approaches the pain and the processes of being left from a set of varying angles, many of the startling, and the final impression is one of a, sometimes painful integrity.She is a master of language for sure, read on the metro or aloud at night the poems balance the tension between verse form and the demands of the sentence beautifully, and wonderful images and turns of phrase are every where.Fair to say I am seriously impressed with this collection and I don't recall that last time I was so moved by a book of contemporary verse.This is special.

I bought this book as a gift for a friend who writes poetry. She has really liked it a lot. Sharon Olds' style of writing is similar to my friends and I thought she would enjoy it.Before giving it to her I took a chance to peek through and read some of the poems. The writer's style is lyrical. Her poems are sometimes very sad or angry as she has written it about her divorce. She contemplates life alone and what it will be like.Sharon Olds book is the first book of poetry to win the T.S. Eliot Prize for Literature in England written by an American woman and only the second written by an American.A great book to read if you like poetry and even for those who don't usually read poetry it is a handsome and well-themed book about a real-life tragedy.

Sharon paints a picture of togetherness and separation, dependence, and freedom, using her tears.Brilliant work.

I really like this poet, who writes in a form I call "narrative poetry" that reels me in every time. My particular favorite in this collection was "The Healers" though many rang and sang to my interior chords. I expect to be reading more of Sharon Olds!

At the outset I had two concerns about Sharon Olds new book of poems. First, I wondered how her artistic ability would be affected by the ageing process. Second, from what I had read, I was fearful the poems might be too personal. It turns out I had nothing to worry about. I read the book in two sittings, which is testament to its readability. Olds skills as a poet are undiminished, and she walks through the minefield of disclosure with the exact right mixture of tact and honesty. Although she is single-minded in her focus on lost and unrequited love, the grace and respect in her words make each poem valuable.

This is one of Sharon Olds' most admired collections. She dissects her divorce in extensive detail, with disarming frankness. It slightly presses an overdose of intimacy upon the reader - I don't share this kind of thing with my closest friends. I started out admiring the honesty but after a while it cloyed. Nonetheless it is a fine volume and there can be few statements about the failure of a relationship that are as direct and close-up as this one.

Another friend recommendation. Stag’s Leap is a collection of poems by the hugely talented Sharon Olds. I didn’t want to read this, as a close friend is currently experiencing similar circumstances, but I’m so glad I did. Even reading the sample on Amazon had me welling up with tears.Olds explores the end of her thirty-year marriage with such skin-stripped truth and agonising imagery, it feels like a kind of therapy in itself. Somehow, The Arrival and Stag’s Leap touch on connected themes – how to adapt to changed circumstances, how to change and how to remain oneself.Olds rips her heart out and lays it in a stainless steel bowl for us to observe. The process of separation and recovery is deeply, viscerally touching, and if – like me – you’re partial to walking into the sea and crying salt into salt, this cathartic experience will both empty and arm you.

A friend recommended Sharon Olds poetry but warned me about the subject matter i.e. heartbreak! I just read a couple at a time - I cried a lot and although it is very painful to experience her heartbreak when her husband falls in love with 'a. n. other' and relive one's own pain in past relationship breakdowns she always manages to say something profound and true about love. It is the fact that she describes the joy of love so exactly that makes the end so very painful, as in 'unspeakable''to stand in his thirty-year ' When he loved me, I lookedsight, and not in love's sight out at the world as if from inside'I feel an invisibility'Or as in' The Flurry' I tell him I will try to fall out oflove with him, but I feel I will love himall my life'I cannot recommend this poetry highly enough - read her and recognise your own heartbreak - it is a genuinely cathartic experience for those of us burned by love and loss .

Beautifully crafted poems, so much so you could run them through your fingers, some flow, others snag, which is good. Brave and bold, as always Sharon Olds tackles what others fear. Honest, or so it seems, account of her marriage break up.... and its aftermath and recovery. Albeit one side of the story, but a rewarding one at that. Particularly admired the poem about telling her Mother about the break up. People are important to her, and I think that's why she resonates with her readership

Studying Eng Lit at university put paid to poetry enjoyment for me. This is my first time back to poetry in 20 years and it doesn't disappoint. An easy narrative style that emerses the reader - no jolting phrases rammed in to make the metre work. One big narrative presented in short poem 'chapters' makes this both compulsive and easy reading. Finally, for a book about the break up of a life-long relationship, it manages to be both realistic and uplifting.