ODES

Opening with a powerful and tender Ode to the Hymen, Sharon Olds uses this age-old poetic form to address many aspects of herself, in a collection that is centered around the female body and female pleasures, and touches along the way on parts of her own story that will be familiar from earlier works, each episode and memory now burnished by the wisdom and grace of looking back. In such poems as Ode to My Sister, Ode of Broken Loyalty, Ode to My Whiteness, Blow Job Ode, Ode to the Last 38 Trees in New York City Visible from This Window, Olds treats us to an intimate self-examination that, like all her work, is universal and by turns searing and charming in its honesty.