Reading Sharon Olds’ work, you are reading the poet’s own life history–the messiness of life rubbing up against the beautiful. Sharon Olds is not afraid to air her dirty laundry in public. In Stag’s Leap, she isn’t afraid to air her ex-husband’s dirty laundry, either.
Over the course of her writing career, Olds has hashed and rehashed her experiences–the death of her college sweetheart, the birth of her two children, her marriage, the death of her father and then mother. Stag’s Leap, Olds’ newest collection of poetry (and the Pulitzer Prize winner for 2013) is no exception; the book chronicles her divorce with a blatant honesty that is unsentimental and refreshing. (The severed marriage is especially poignant when juxtaposed to the intimate portrayls of her ex-husband in her previous books of poetry.)
The poems are arranged chronologically, moving from the first moments of separation(“While he told me, I looked from small thing/to small thing”), to years after (“We talk of the kids, and it’s/ as if that will never be taken from us”). She charts the change in emotion and relationship: the shock of being a single again, the feelings of inadequacy, anger, bitterness, guilt, and eventually, forgiveness.
Stag’s Leap is a poignant portrait of life-after-marriage. The not-so-glamourous story of falling out of love.
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