a book
The Dead and the Living
Sharon Olds · 1984 · 96 pages
From the Pulitzer Prize and T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry winner comes a beautifully realized collection of poems about childhood, love, marriage, children, and honoring the dead.
Larry Lewis say, “The Dead and the Living is an unignorable book, something truly rare. The feeling behind it is painful, but exquisitely so. Pain made into art or what, in another time, people called ‘beauty.’” It is an achievement of a poet writing in the full measure of her powers.
The Lamont poetry selection of the Academy of American Poets.
Larry Lewis say, “The Dead and the Living is an unignorable book, something truly rare. The feeling behind it is painful, but exquisitely so. Pain made into art or what, in another time, people called ‘beauty.’” It is an achievement of a poet writing in the full measure of her powers.
The Lamont poetry selection of the Academy of American Poets.
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Sarah Paulson
“Some people are put off by Olds—the way she explores difficult topics—but I’m interested in learning about those kinds of deep, dark places. I’ve always been attracted to one poem in particular, called ‘The Elder Sister.’ My younger sister, Elizabeth, always seemed like a warrior to me. I know it should be the other way around, since I’m the elder, but it wasn’t. And this poem describes the way I see her: ‘She protected me, not as a mother / protects a child, with love, but as a / hostage protects the one who makes her / escape as I made my escape, with my sister’s / body held in front of me.'”↗
