Analysis Of Sharon Olds: From Psalms To Satan Says
Anthony P. Schaible
Ms. Hanna Frazier
AP English 12
5 January 2013
Sharon Olds: From Psalms to Satan Says
Movement:
Sharon Olds is a confessional poet. The criteria of the confessional genre are subject matter that is deeply personal to the speaker or author. The work of Sharon Olds is almost exclusively her own personal experiences with her sisters and parents as well as her experiences with being a mother. The subject matter is also typically on taboo subjects such as sex which is also a common topic of Sharon Olds’ work. Another common trait of confessional poetry is that the speaker will wear some form of mask to keep the author a small margin away from the speaker. While Olds doesn’t create a mask directly, she never directly reveals …show more content…
The entirety of the poem circles around fear. From the very first line “The dirt scared me,” the narrator describes all of the things that cause her to be afraid surrounding the case. The flow of the poem is very rocky and awkward because of the broken sentences and enjambment of the lines. This creates a frantic mood, almost as if the narrator is speaking out of breath. The fear the narrator heaps on herself worsens with each connection she makes to the victim. The speaker connects her acne to the eczema on the victim who she feared was killed for not being flawless as suggested by the marked paper found on the body. The speaker describes Burton Abbott in plain words to stress his normal appearance. The narrator says that Abbott “took away what I’d thought I could count on about evil,” meaning that the narrator realizes that evil can manifest itself in any form, even the most innocent looking. Fear turns to pity when the narrator begins speaking of Abbott’s execution. In the line “death to the person, death to the home planet,” Olds is protesting the eye-for-an-eye punishment that Abbott was to receive. The last lines stress, yet again, the idea that humans can be sources of evil as much as anything
Ms. Hanna Frazier
AP English 12
5 January 2013
Sharon Olds: From Psalms to Satan Says
Movement:
Sharon Olds is a confessional poet. The criteria of the confessional genre are subject matter that is deeply personal to the speaker or author. The work of Sharon Olds is almost exclusively her own personal experiences with her sisters and parents as well as her experiences with being a mother. The subject matter is also typically on taboo subjects such as sex which is also a common topic of Sharon Olds’ work. Another common trait of confessional poetry is that the speaker will wear some form of mask to keep the author a small margin away from the speaker. While Olds doesn’t create a mask directly, she never directly reveals …show more content…
The entirety of the poem circles around fear. From the very first line “The dirt scared me,” the narrator describes all of the things that cause her to be afraid surrounding the case. The flow of the poem is very rocky and awkward because of the broken sentences and enjambment of the lines. This creates a frantic mood, almost as if the narrator is speaking out of breath. The fear the narrator heaps on herself worsens with each connection she makes to the victim. The speaker connects her acne to the eczema on the victim who she feared was killed for not being flawless as suggested by the marked paper found on the body. The speaker describes Burton Abbott in plain words to stress his normal appearance. The narrator says that Abbott “took away what I’d thought I could count on about evil,” meaning that the narrator realizes that evil can manifest itself in any form, even the most innocent looking. Fear turns to pity when the narrator begins speaking of Abbott’s execution. In the line “death to the person, death to the home planet,” Olds is protesting the eye-for-an-eye punishment that Abbott was to receive. The last lines stress, yet again, the idea that humans can be sources of evil as much as anything