What do you think?
Rate this book
Satan Says
Poems examine life as a child, a woman, and a mother; death; and our relationship to the world. This book, Olds's first, was published when she was 37, and it launched her Pulitzer-winning career.
I am trying to write my
way out of the closed box
redolent of cedar. Satan
comes to me in the locked box
and says, I'll get you out. Say
My father is a shit. I say
my father is a shit and Satan
laughs and says, It's opening.
I am trying to write my
way out of the closed box
redolent of cedar. Satan
comes to me in the locked box
and says, I'll get you out. Say
My father is a shit. I say
my father is a shit and Satan
laughs and says, It's opening.
72 pages, Paperback
First published June 30, 1980
About the author
Sharon Olds
77 books715 followersBorn in San Francisco on November 19, 1942, Sharon Olds earned a B.A. at Stanford University and a Ph.D. at Columbia University.
Her first collection of poems, Satan Says (1980), received the inaugural San Francisco Poetry Center Award. Olds's following collection, The Dead & the Living (1983), received the Lamont Poetry Selection in 1983 and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Her other collections include Strike Sparks: Selected Poems (2004, Knopf), The Unswept Room (2002), Blood, Tin, Straw (1999), The Gold Cell (1997), The Wellspring (1995), and The Father (1992), which was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
About Olds's poetry, one reviewer for the New York Times said, "Her work has a robust sensuality, a delight in the physical that is almost Whitmanesque. She has made the minutiae of a woman's everyday life as valid a subject for poetry as the grand abstract themes that have preoccupied other poets."
Olds's numerous honors include a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Ploughshares, and has been anthologized in more than a hundred collections.
Olds held the position of New York State Poet from 1998 to 2000. She currently teaches poetry workshops at New York University's Graduate Creative Writing Program as well as a workshop at Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York. She was elected an Academy Chancellor in 2006. She lives in New York City.
Her first collection of poems, Satan Says (1980), received the inaugural San Francisco Poetry Center Award. Olds's following collection, The Dead & the Living (1983), received the Lamont Poetry Selection in 1983 and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Her other collections include Strike Sparks: Selected Poems (2004, Knopf), The Unswept Room (2002), Blood, Tin, Straw (1999), The Gold Cell (1997), The Wellspring (1995), and The Father (1992), which was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
About Olds's poetry, one reviewer for the New York Times said, "Her work has a robust sensuality, a delight in the physical that is almost Whitmanesque. She has made the minutiae of a woman's everyday life as valid a subject for poetry as the grand abstract themes that have preoccupied other poets."
Olds's numerous honors include a National Endowment for the Arts grant and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. Her poetry has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Ploughshares, and has been anthologized in more than a hundred collections.
Olds held the position of New York State Poet from 1998 to 2000. She currently teaches poetry workshops at New York University's Graduate Creative Writing Program as well as a workshop at Goldwater Hospital on Roosevelt Island in New York. She was elected an Academy Chancellor in 2006. She lives in New York City.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 135 reviews
January 1, 2023
Este livro nascido de um pacto que a poetisa americana fez com o Diabo, atravessa-nos com a sua linguagem provocadora, obscena, desafiante, cruel, mas sempre muito honesta. Dividido em quatro partes: Filha, Mulher, Mãe e Viagem, este livro transforma-se facilmente num hino cru aos papéis, muitas vezes desiguais, assumidos pela mulher enquanto filha, amante, mulher, mãe,...
“A CONVERSA
Ao meio-dia, no escuro e quadrado quarto de madeira,
a mãe teve uma conversa com a filha.
A má-criação tinha de acabar, as partidas
ao irmão mais novo, o egoísmo.
A criança de 8 anos sentou-se na cama
no canto do quarto, as suas íris escuras como as
últimas gotas de algo, o seu rosto
firme derretendo-se, enrubescendo,
lampejos de prata nos seus olhos como remotos
corpos de água vislumbrados através dos bosques.
Ela engoliu e engoliu e rebentou, gritando
- Detesto ser uma pessoa! mergulhando
na mãe
como se
num
lago fundo - e ela não sabe nadar,
a criança não sabe nadar.”
“A CONVERSA
Ao meio-dia, no escuro e quadrado quarto de madeira,
a mãe teve uma conversa com a filha.
A má-criação tinha de acabar, as partidas
ao irmão mais novo, o egoísmo.
A criança de 8 anos sentou-se na cama
no canto do quarto, as suas íris escuras como as
últimas gotas de algo, o seu rosto
firme derretendo-se, enrubescendo,
lampejos de prata nos seus olhos como remotos
corpos de água vislumbrados através dos bosques.
Ela engoliu e engoliu e rebentou, gritando
- Detesto ser uma pessoa! mergulhando
na mãe
como se
num
lago fundo - e ela não sabe nadar,
a criança não sabe nadar.”
April 23, 2017
This is a vivid, unforgettable set of debut poems - Sharon Olds' first published collection. She covers childhood, womanhood, mothering, and a journey period. The abuse she and her sister suffered from their father, the somewhat shifty presence of her own mother, her reluctance to be a mother and then being inside of it, all of it is honest and descriptively told.
A few excerpts from random poems:
"I did not understand his doom or my taste for the big
dangerous body."
"I have known the Republican living rooms...."
"Once you lose someone it is never exactly
the same person who comes back."
"I would kill for you. I remind myself
it won't be necessary."
"She was home, then.
This was her place, the one of all the others
where she feared to walk, where someone had always
arrived first, and would hold it against her
at any cost."
A few excerpts from random poems:
"I did not understand his doom or my taste for the big
dangerous body."
"I have known the Republican living rooms...."
"Once you lose someone it is never exactly
the same person who comes back."
"I would kill for you. I remind myself
it won't be necessary."
"She was home, then.
This was her place, the one of all the others
where she feared to walk, where someone had always
arrived first, and would hold it against her
at any cost."
October 23, 2023
Shocked I did not enjoy this more than I did. The title poem was phenomenal but I could not connect to much else in this collection.
July 14, 2011
I've liked Sharon Olds for years, and poets and poetry readers have recommended this, her first book, as 1) her best and 2) one not to be missed. I'm right there with them on the "not to be missed" but maybe The Dead and the Living is still my favorite, just because it was the first book of hers that I read.
I very much appreciate the final poem, "Prayer," asking to "be faithful to the central meanings" of all the poems in this book, and there follows a list of themes and images that do stay central in later books, as I know from reading them! Sex, children, childbirth, fears, the centrality of woman's experience. A few images: "hot needle of / milk piercing my nipple," "bright / sweat glazing us with resin." Resin and rosin repeat in this book, daughters, mothers, water. Satan is here, briefly. Walt Whitman, more than once.
Oh, how I love "Five-Year-Old Boy." I will quote from the end of it:
.... He stands on the porch, peeing
into the grass, watching a bird
fly around the house, and ends up
pissing on the front door. Afterwards he
twangs his penis. Long after
the last drops fly into the lawn,
he stands there gently rattling his dick,
his face full of intelligence,
his white, curved forehead slightly
puckered in thought, his eyes clear,
gazing out over the pond,
his mouth firm and serious;
abstractedly he shakes himself
once more
and the house collapses
to the ground behind him.
I had to pause after this and sit there laughing, gently laughing in utter joy. I was giggling all through and watching, as the mother/poet must have watched, in quiet respect for the 5-year-old boy, but then I laughed out loud.
I loved reading this now, knowing it was her first book, and spying the odd, sometimes weak line breaks (some she says she regrets, but they seem to reinforce natural rhythms of thought, breathing, or speech, so I don't really mind them), those central obsessions and meanings and that's something I so admire and, nowadays, yearn for in contemporary poetry--meanings, the willingness and ability to mean.
I very much appreciate the final poem, "Prayer," asking to "be faithful to the central meanings" of all the poems in this book, and there follows a list of themes and images that do stay central in later books, as I know from reading them! Sex, children, childbirth, fears, the centrality of woman's experience. A few images: "hot needle of / milk piercing my nipple," "bright / sweat glazing us with resin." Resin and rosin repeat in this book, daughters, mothers, water. Satan is here, briefly. Walt Whitman, more than once.
Oh, how I love "Five-Year-Old Boy." I will quote from the end of it:
.... He stands on the porch, peeing
into the grass, watching a bird
fly around the house, and ends up
pissing on the front door. Afterwards he
twangs his penis. Long after
the last drops fly into the lawn,
he stands there gently rattling his dick,
his face full of intelligence,
his white, curved forehead slightly
puckered in thought, his eyes clear,
gazing out over the pond,
his mouth firm and serious;
abstractedly he shakes himself
once more
and the house collapses
to the ground behind him.
I had to pause after this and sit there laughing, gently laughing in utter joy. I was giggling all through and watching, as the mother/poet must have watched, in quiet respect for the 5-year-old boy, but then I laughed out loud.
I loved reading this now, knowing it was her first book, and spying the odd, sometimes weak line breaks (some she says she regrets, but they seem to reinforce natural rhythms of thought, breathing, or speech, so I don't really mind them), those central obsessions and meanings and that's something I so admire and, nowadays, yearn for in contemporary poetry--meanings, the willingness and ability to mean.
July 9, 2023
sharon olds poems feel like a surprise-she presents an idea and makes accurate connections to illicit strong images in the mind’s eye of her readers.
from the opening poem which holds the same title as the collection:
“I am locked in a little cedar box
with a picture of shepherds pasted onto
the central panel between carvings.
The box stands on curved legs.
It has a gold, heart-shaped lock
and no key. I am trying to write my
way out of the closed box
redolent of cedar”.
Sharon is writing her way out of the box through examining how the world, all of its evils and pleasures and seemingly sinful things- unfurls itself throughout the life of a girl from childhood, adolescence, womanhood, and motherhood. In it, Sharon is haunted and questioning her relationship to God and trying not to be tempted. I loved this collection so much. It’s definitely my number one poetry read so far this year.
from the opening poem which holds the same title as the collection:
“I am locked in a little cedar box
with a picture of shepherds pasted onto
the central panel between carvings.
The box stands on curved legs.
It has a gold, heart-shaped lock
and no key. I am trying to write my
way out of the closed box
redolent of cedar”.
Sharon is writing her way out of the box through examining how the world, all of its evils and pleasures and seemingly sinful things- unfurls itself throughout the life of a girl from childhood, adolescence, womanhood, and motherhood. In it, Sharon is haunted and questioning her relationship to God and trying not to be tempted. I loved this collection so much. It’s definitely my number one poetry read so far this year.
January 25, 2023
I am speechless, I am dead, there is no more I can say.
March 10, 2023
This is a bloodthirsty and grotesquely honest poetry book about life as a child, a woman, and a mother. Full of rage, locked-in, locked out, all of it. And it's Olds' FIRST book!
Read this book if you like the Kristin Chang quote, "Godhood is just like girlhood: a begging to be believed."
And ESPECIALLY read this book if you like the Bobbie Burstow quote, "Often father and daughter look down on mother (woman) together. They will exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not as bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother's fate."
Read this book if you like the Kristin Chang quote, "Godhood is just like girlhood: a begging to be believed."
And ESPECIALLY read this book if you like the Bobbie Burstow quote, "Often father and daughter look down on mother (woman) together. They will exchange meaningful glances when she misses a point. They agree that she is not as bright as they are, cannot reason as they do. This collusion does not save the daughter from the mother's fate."
July 19, 2016
Incredible. THIS IS A FIRST BOOK SOMEHOW.
Read
December 19, 2023shaz's first ! way back over forty year & it got me thinking about how these come around. Was published when she was thirty seven , relatively late as they go & mostly it seems because she had the hugest battles with the most intensely misogynist establishment, no surprise unready for sharon olds poems. a well that's all over huh
amazing to see how much is immediately here at that super recognisable formal level. it gets more intense / obvious (no pejorative) later, but ! still clear. The final poem, Prayer, almost feels like Sharon Olds discovering how to write like sharon olds, all viscera. many others to enjoy - Five Year Old Boy, Infinite Bliss - tho it feels like she's yet to quite capture the organisation of content. probably make sense! first book, too many stories to tell . zhizn!
amazing to see how much is immediately here at that super recognisable formal level. it gets more intense / obvious (no pejorative) later, but ! still clear. The final poem, Prayer, almost feels like Sharon Olds discovering how to write like sharon olds, all viscera. many others to enjoy - Five Year Old Boy, Infinite Bliss - tho it feels like she's yet to quite capture the organisation of content. probably make sense! first book, too many stories to tell . zhizn!
May 2, 2010
"Once you lose someone it is never exactly
the same person who comes back"
-Feared Drowned
It is a bit odd to be writing a review of a book I have already written an exam on, but I realized that even though I had covered this book in my English course "Modern American Poetry" it was the one book of poetry, because it was the last we covered during a feverish rush of end of the semester, that I hadn't properly read. So because Olds is talented and deserving of a proper read, I decided to sit down and go through the book cover to cover for the first time. It says a lot about a writer that you want to read their works again- after completing a course in which they were covered. Usually books have all joy sucked out of them by dry analysis but the thing about Olds is that the more you read her poetry, the more layers you discover.
Olds is a confessional poet, following in the tradition of Lowell, Plath and Sexton (whom were also covered in my course). Her poetry covers topics such as family life, relationships, and particularly in "Satan Says" the abuse that she experienced at the hands of her father, while her mother (compared to a pimp in the title poem) stood idly by. Satan Says has a distinct narrative that you miss if you read only excerpts of it, as the poems occur in a chronological order. The book is also divided into four sections, each covering a different portion of Olds' life, from Daughter, to Woman, to Mother to Journey. It is a skilled way of dividing up the poetry and it is clear she put a lot of thought not only into the poems themselves, but how they are organized.
This is her first book of poetry, and it has a rawness to it that I hope is not lost in subsequent work. Often when reading published poetry I find it has been polished to the point of being dull and emotionless- certainly not the case with Satan Says. The only way to describe this book is to say it is bloody and violent and fervent. It is also written from a uniquely female perspective- so although of course I would recommend her poetry to anyone, I am honestly not sure it would have the same impact on a male reader (and since my class had only two males both who rarely attended I didn't get much insight into that). Olds also has a very interesting way of playing with language, such as in "The Love Object" where she says "I am taking the word love away from the boy" as if she is recognizing both the limitations and the beauty of language. This beautiful self-awareness is what epitomizes Satan Says for me- life may be terrible or wonderful, but whatever it is, Olds does not shriek away from it but instead faces it head on.
the same person who comes back"
-Feared Drowned
It is a bit odd to be writing a review of a book I have already written an exam on, but I realized that even though I had covered this book in my English course "Modern American Poetry" it was the one book of poetry, because it was the last we covered during a feverish rush of end of the semester, that I hadn't properly read. So because Olds is talented and deserving of a proper read, I decided to sit down and go through the book cover to cover for the first time. It says a lot about a writer that you want to read their works again- after completing a course in which they were covered. Usually books have all joy sucked out of them by dry analysis but the thing about Olds is that the more you read her poetry, the more layers you discover.
Olds is a confessional poet, following in the tradition of Lowell, Plath and Sexton (whom were also covered in my course). Her poetry covers topics such as family life, relationships, and particularly in "Satan Says" the abuse that she experienced at the hands of her father, while her mother (compared to a pimp in the title poem) stood idly by. Satan Says has a distinct narrative that you miss if you read only excerpts of it, as the poems occur in a chronological order. The book is also divided into four sections, each covering a different portion of Olds' life, from Daughter, to Woman, to Mother to Journey. It is a skilled way of dividing up the poetry and it is clear she put a lot of thought not only into the poems themselves, but how they are organized.
This is her first book of poetry, and it has a rawness to it that I hope is not lost in subsequent work. Often when reading published poetry I find it has been polished to the point of being dull and emotionless- certainly not the case with Satan Says. The only way to describe this book is to say it is bloody and violent and fervent. It is also written from a uniquely female perspective- so although of course I would recommend her poetry to anyone, I am honestly not sure it would have the same impact on a male reader (and since my class had only two males both who rarely attended I didn't get much insight into that). Olds also has a very interesting way of playing with language, such as in "The Love Object" where she says "I am taking the word love away from the boy" as if she is recognizing both the limitations and the beauty of language. This beautiful self-awareness is what epitomizes Satan Says for me- life may be terrible or wonderful, but whatever it is, Olds does not shriek away from it but instead faces it head on.
November 26, 2015
-Satan Says (1980)- by Sharon Olds is a landmark book of modern and confessional poetry. It is important as an incredibly well-designed poetic, chronological narrative of a woman's experience. As expressed on the back cover of the book, "Few first books have had the power or the vigor of design of Sharon Olds's -Satan Says-." I completely agree with statement. This is unforgettable, powerful, of high value---poetry of the human experience. The book (and wonderful metaphor) is set up intriguingly and perfectly through the title piece, 'Satan Says,' as we'll follow Olds through the chapters of her Life: I. Daughter; II. Woman; III. Mother; IV. Journey. This noted, the book should be read as a whole, from beginning to end. Individually the gross majority of poems are fantastic and independently so, at least 80%. And as a whole work, this book is high-art and significant in the world of poetry. Personally, I found this book fairly, for lack of a better term, psychedelic, from my vantage point as a man and as being a young boy during the time when this was written. As for the rating, I struggle to not be overly enthusiastic and give out too many 5 stars, but after re-reading this just now and considering how this places comparatively with most poetry you'll find on the shelf I emphatically give this a 5/5.
April 19, 2009
I was introduced to Sharon Olds' poetry via her awesome poem about birth, "The Language of the Brag". After reading her magnficent retort in the last verse to Whitman and Ginsberg, "I have done what you wanted to do Walt Whitman, Allen Ginsberg, I have done this thing, I and the other women this exceptional act with the exceptional heroic body, this giving birth, this glistening verb, and I am putting my proud American boast right here with the others," I was a true fan of her honest, heartfelt poems. She has no equal!!
She writes what every woman thinks but cannot or will not put into words on paper. I'm reminded of the quote my Muriel Rukeyser: "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open."
Sharon Olds' poems rip us apart. They tear at our very being, but most of all, they tell one woman's truth, which becomes every woman's truth. We are taught to be polite, don't make waves, fit in...but Ms. Olds banishes the old stereotypes and pours the very blood in her heart out onto the paper over her words and splits the myths and fallacies wide open.
Do not read this book if you're expecting flowery verse. It's for people willing to have their soul and spirit touched and changed----for the better.
She writes what every woman thinks but cannot or will not put into words on paper. I'm reminded of the quote my Muriel Rukeyser: "What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open."
Sharon Olds' poems rip us apart. They tear at our very being, but most of all, they tell one woman's truth, which becomes every woman's truth. We are taught to be polite, don't make waves, fit in...but Ms. Olds banishes the old stereotypes and pours the very blood in her heart out onto the paper over her words and splits the myths and fallacies wide open.
Do not read this book if you're expecting flowery verse. It's for people willing to have their soul and spirit touched and changed----for the better.
February 6, 2017
Some of the riskiest, most dangerous poetry I've ever read. Absolutely brilliant
Read
December 11, 2023I did it! I achieved my goal of reading a poetry book each month in 2023! I'm so much more poetic now!
I think that I originally encountered this book on the attic shelf of my undergrad adviser's house, when I was housesitting over the summer. I was reminded that it existed recently by the random, strange tides of the internet.
This was a bit too much "my father's cock, my mother's cunt, their glistening sex" for my tastes at present. However, Sharon Olds writes about motherhood with admirable ferocity (I say, not now and unlikely ever to be a mother). I think that if I had read this back during that undergrad summer, when I was working on my poetry manuscript and obsessed with confessional poetry, and when I reveled in making boys in my workshops uncomfortable with how comfortable I was writing about menstrual blood, I would have loved it.
I think that I originally encountered this book on the attic shelf of my undergrad adviser's house, when I was housesitting over the summer. I was reminded that it existed recently by the random, strange tides of the internet.
This was a bit too much "my father's cock, my mother's cunt, their glistening sex" for my tastes at present. However, Sharon Olds writes about motherhood with admirable ferocity (I say, not now and unlikely ever to be a mother). I think that if I had read this back during that undergrad summer, when I was working on my poetry manuscript and obsessed with confessional poetry, and when I reveled in making boys in my workshops uncomfortable with how comfortable I was writing about menstrual blood, I would have loved it.
August 8, 2022
i'm a forever Olds fan, and this one gave me everything i love from this writer. no one else just puts their whole entire heart and whole entire life on the page while still maintaining the strength of each individual poem like Olds. this one is a little more rocky poem-to-poem for me to give five stars, but it's still a great, staggering, painful read.
February 17, 2024
This is a hard book to recommend. Yes, I think people should read it, should devour it for all its glory, be amazed by Old’s haunting prose, but still, hard to recommend in good faith. But that is not to say don’t read it
July 9, 2024
Utterly ferocious. A gory lyric of womanly actualization that challenges typical attitudes regarding motherhood, childhood, sex, etc. The titular poem surprises me every time in its empathy for its victims and its treatise on the limitations of the confessional poem as a site of evisceration.
March 13, 2018
Dazzling, brutal. Sharon Olds ripped my heart out and patched it back together, just as good but not quite the same.
June 13, 2019
I guess I like my poetry genital-free?
April 6, 2020
666 🔥👹🔥
July 30, 2020
Never know how to rate poetry collection. Three stars for the 3 poems that I was struck by. The rest I could have done without.
December 2, 2021
Impactada por dos situaciones bien concretas: que este sea el primer de la autora (de cualquier autor o autora) y que Sharon Olds me siga sorprendiendo con su estilo tan personal para abordar las relaciones humanas. Una mezcla de sensaciones increíbles que solo se consigue con una sensibilidad absoluta.
Leer este libro es como ver a esta voz poética que nos habla haciendo una autopsia a su cuerpo de hija, mujer y madre. ¡Maravilloso!
Leer este libro es como ver a esta voz poética que nos habla haciendo una autopsia a su cuerpo de hija, mujer y madre. ¡Maravilloso!
March 11, 2008
After finally reading this inaugural collection that introduced the poetry world to Sharon Olds’ voice, I wish I could have been around to experience each of her collections as they came out. The lyric punch that she achieves in each poem is much like a real punch: the initial shock is numbing, then pain surfaces and finally, the place where you were hit begins a dull throb that pulses and reminds you of the impact every so often. A few even break the skin, leaving a scar to worry over for years. Olds accomplishes this complex reaction by making even the most brutal detail sing with the joy of language and by combining the unabashed honesty of an abuse survivor with a compassionate heart for both the abused and the abusers. For example, in the poem that gives this book its title, the speaker feels trapped because she is unable to name the nasty things her parents did to her; but as the character of Satan urges her to defile them, the “little cedar box” (3) she is stuck inside begins to open. However, in the end, she opts to stay in the box, because she will not completely discount that although her parents were cruel, she “loved/them, too” (4). This balance is what makes these poems rise above bitterness and begin to touch on common human experiences. Yes, I would have liked to been on this journey with her from the beginning, but I will settle for doing some backtracking so I can catch up on this bumpy, but moving, ride.
March 12, 2017
I've resisted putting my reviews of Sharon Olds' poems up on the Internet, mainly because I haven't had time to give these deep meditations proper appreciation. The other reason is that in these books there are invariably one or two poems that make me cry in the ugliest way imaginable, and I've haven't wanted to have that experience lately.
I've read most of her books more than ten times a piece, so I was surprised that when I sat down to reread Satan Says, the Rosetta Stone of Olds' body of work, what I was seeing, sadly for the first time, were subtle details my brain had skipped right over in the years before. And I thought of myself as an Olds' expert! It really is the little things that make give a poem its impact. In "The Indispensability of the Eyes," Olds writes, "Every year/my glasses got stronger. What went on at home/I couldn't bear to see." I can't recall noticing this line in my (many) rereadings of Olds' books, yet it seems to, like most of the poems here, serve a vital place in the piece as a whole in a mere two lines and fifteen words.
I can't agree that Satan Says is Olds best book--that honor belongs to the magnificent The Gold Cell--but it's shockingly good, and now I know, better than I have given it credit for: a woman breaking out of the restrictions of her life to bring her art to the collective, without guilt, self-blame, or denial.
I've read most of her books more than ten times a piece, so I was surprised that when I sat down to reread Satan Says, the Rosetta Stone of Olds' body of work, what I was seeing, sadly for the first time, were subtle details my brain had skipped right over in the years before. And I thought of myself as an Olds' expert! It really is the little things that make give a poem its impact. In "The Indispensability of the Eyes," Olds writes, "Every year/my glasses got stronger. What went on at home/I couldn't bear to see." I can't recall noticing this line in my (many) rereadings of Olds' books, yet it seems to, like most of the poems here, serve a vital place in the piece as a whole in a mere two lines and fifteen words.
I can't agree that Satan Says is Olds best book--that honor belongs to the magnificent The Gold Cell--but it's shockingly good, and now I know, better than I have given it credit for: a woman breaking out of the restrictions of her life to bring her art to the collective, without guilt, self-blame, or denial.
February 7, 2011
I've been meaning to try Sharon Olds for awhile--she has such a reputation as the queen of confessionalism. This is her first book, published in 1980.
I found this book to be very uneven. There were some poems that absolutely stunned me (the title poem is, in my opinion, far and away the best poem in the book, totally on a different level). These poems were raw and damning and surprising and full of unique metaphors. There were other poems that I sort of liked--perhaps the poem had one startling, original image. Then there were other poems that to me were almost caricatures, they were so steeped in what has now become the stereotype of contemporary confessional poetry. Although it is definitely true that when she was writing, this sort of material might have seemed really new.
Her subject matter, in general, is very domestic and sexual and of the home, family, and lover.
Olds has a Louise Gluckian air about her sometimes that I enjoy (often this is when a rare and dark sense of humor comes in).
There is a definite ick factor to many of these poems. She seems to write a lot about her children's genitals...
You know, several of her poems in this book have stayed with me, though, both the amazing ones and the ones I only kind of liked. That has to say something.
Favorite poems: "Satan Says," "Love Fossil," "The Opening," "Indictment of Senior Officers," "Monarchs," and "Young Mothers I"
I found this book to be very uneven. There were some poems that absolutely stunned me (the title poem is, in my opinion, far and away the best poem in the book, totally on a different level). These poems were raw and damning and surprising and full of unique metaphors. There were other poems that I sort of liked--perhaps the poem had one startling, original image. Then there were other poems that to me were almost caricatures, they were so steeped in what has now become the stereotype of contemporary confessional poetry. Although it is definitely true that when she was writing, this sort of material might have seemed really new.
Her subject matter, in general, is very domestic and sexual and of the home, family, and lover.
Olds has a Louise Gluckian air about her sometimes that I enjoy (often this is when a rare and dark sense of humor comes in).
There is a definite ick factor to many of these poems. She seems to write a lot about her children's genitals...
You know, several of her poems in this book have stayed with me, though, both the amazing ones and the ones I only kind of liked. That has to say something.
Favorite poems: "Satan Says," "Love Fossil," "The Opening," "Indictment of Senior Officers," "Monarchs," and "Young Mothers I"
May 24, 2020
I didn't really understand this book when I was younger. Now, looking through it again, I'm surprised to find it shot through with so much tenderness. I think I was stunned, on my first reads, by its explicitness and bitterness, but this time, I think I see how those forces are actually, in some ways, what Olds is contending with. The first poem tells me: it would be easier if she were able to simply reject her family, say they are not a part of her, take pleasure in the denunciation. Instead, she finds it hard, because she loves them, and thus begins a tangle of different vectors. I remembered this book for the sort of violent impression it left on 2012 (or so) Neil, but this time around, I've come to understand that it's not without love, and it's that complication that gives it its richness.
May 22, 2008
"Satan Says" is the first collection of Olds' poetry which I have read (although I've come across her poems once or twice in anthologies). I found the poems in "Satan Says" to be not only startling and brutally honest, but beautifully crafted as well. Her work reminded me greatly of Marie Howe, another female poet writing on (among other things) the body's oft-ignored sensuality even in the face of an abusive world (or family). Her poems seem to fuse the simple craftsmanship and observational talents of haiku with the frankness of Anne Sexton, giving us a treatise as much related to the body, childbirth, sexuality, dying, and aggression as to metaphysics. Genuine and powerful, highly recommended!
February 16, 2013
I don't usually review books, so it says something that I'm willing to write about this one.
I stumbled upon this book by chance and I have not regretted it ever since.
It is hard for me to accept that this book is a debut effort due to its brilliance. I have never been moved by poetry as much as I have by this book. It's honest and unapologetic, it makes you think. The symbolism is not too hard to grasp and the language is delectable to say the least (and the generous use of profanity just won my heart over).
The way the author divided the book is amazing, it shows the cycle that she went through from childhood to motherhood and the journey throughout.
Overall, it is confessionalism at its finest. It'll be a book that you'll read over and over.
I stumbled upon this book by chance and I have not regretted it ever since.
It is hard for me to accept that this book is a debut effort due to its brilliance. I have never been moved by poetry as much as I have by this book. It's honest and unapologetic, it makes you think. The symbolism is not too hard to grasp and the language is delectable to say the least (and the generous use of profanity just won my heart over).
The way the author divided the book is amazing, it shows the cycle that she went through from childhood to motherhood and the journey throughout.
Overall, it is confessionalism at its finest. It'll be a book that you'll read over and over.
June 13, 2007
It's been a long time since I actively sought out new poetry to read, but Sharon Olds changed that in a flash. Published the year I was born, "Satan Says" finally convinced me that there is such a thing as Women's Lit, unique from the male canon. This book is a painstaking detail of woman--both particular and generalized in one of the best executions of craft I've ever read. If you've never had the pleasure of Mrs. Olds' company, this is a great place to start.
Still not sure? Listen to this recitation of her poem "Topography," delivered by the great Garrison Keillor.
http://www.alternium.net/sOldsTopogra...
Still not sure? Listen to this recitation of her poem "Topography," delivered by the great Garrison Keillor.
http://www.alternium.net/sOldsTopogra...
January 16, 2008
This volume created Olds's reputation and deservedly so. (The Dead and the Living may have clinched it, but this is what made people perk up and take notice.) It's funny, her ways of writing are almost rote these days, but at the time she really shook up the status quo in her own way. The individual poems are famous enough--I needn't talk about them. What I can say is that Olds knows how to string them along so the final collection has even more impact than the individual parts--once you read all of these together you will never want to read them seperately again, and you can see her firey ambivalence in full flower.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 135 reviews