https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x Sharon Olds en-us 2019-05-10 14:21:45 UTC 2026-01-02 07:48:44 UTC hello@padlet.com https://imgglb.padletcdn.com/v13/image?t=g_auto&url=https%3A%2F%2Fpadlet.net%2Ficons%2Fpng%2F2728.png 3474642 https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358894625 A week after my father died suddenly I understood his fondness for me was safe—nothing could touch it. In those last months, his face would sometimes brighten when I would enter the room, and his wife said that once, when he was half asleep, he smiled when she said my name. He respected my spunk—when they tied me to the chair, that time, they were tying up someone he respected, and when he did not speak, for weeks, I was one of the beings to whom he was not speaking, someone with a place in his life. The last week he even said it, once, by mistake. I walked into his room, and said “How are you,” and he said, “I love you too.” From then on, I had that word to lose. Right up to the last moment, I could make some mistake, offend him, and with one of his old mouths of disgust he could re- skew my life. I did not think of it, I was helping to take care of him, wiping his face and watching him. But then, a while after he died, I suddenly thought, with amazement, he will always love me now, and I laughed—he was dead, dead!]]> 2019-05-10 14:28:14 UTC https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358894625 3474642 https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358896280 As we get near the house, taking off our gloves,
the air forming a fine casing of 
ice around each hand,
you say you believe I would hold up under torture 
for the sake of our children. You say you think I have 
courage. I lean against the door and weep,
the tears freezing on my cheeks with brittle 
clicking sounds.
I think of the women standing naked
on the frozen river, the guards pouring
buckets of water over their bodies till they
glisten like trees in an ice storm.
I have never thought I could take it, not even
for the children. It is all I have wanted to do,
to stand between them and pain. But I come from a
long line
of women
who put themselves 
first. I lean against the huge dark
cold door, my face glittering with
glare ice like a dangerous road,
and think about hot pokers, and goads,
and the skin of my children, the delicate, tight,
thin, top layer of it
covering their whole bodies, softly
glimmering.

]]> 2019-05-10 14:32:07 UTC https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358896280 3474642 https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358900422 2019-05-10 14:41:13 UTC https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358900422 3474642 https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358900718 2019-05-10 14:41:48 UTC https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358900718 3474642 https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358901113 2019-05-10 14:42:28 UTC https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358901113 3474642 https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358901720 2019-05-10 14:43:53 UTC https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358901720 3474642 https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358901897 2019-05-10 14:44:19 UTC https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358901897 3474642 https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358902255 2019-05-10 14:45:13 UTC https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358902255 3474642 https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358903412 Maybe one reason I do not wear makeup is to scare people.
If they’re close enough, they can see something is different with me,
something unnerving, as if I have no features,
I am embryonic, pre-eyebrows, pre-eyelids, pre-mouth,
I am like a water-bear talking to them,
or an amniotic traveller,
a vitreous floater on their own eyeball,
human ectoplasm risen on its hind legs to discourse with them.
And such a white white girl, such a sickly toadstool,
so pale, a visage of fog, a phiz of
mist above a graveyard, no magenta roses,
no floral tribute, no goddess, no grownup
woman, no acknowledgment
of the drama of secondary sexual characteristics, just the
gray matter of spirit talking,
the thin features of a gray girl in a gray graveyard—
granite, ash, chalk, dust.
I tried the paint, but I could feel it on my skin, I could
hardly move under the mask of my
desire to be seen as attractive in the female
way of 1957,
and I could not speak. And when the makeup came off I felt
actual as a small mammal in the woods
with a speaking countenance, or a basic
primate, having all the expressions
that evolved in us, to communicate.
If my teen-age acne had left scars,
if my skin were rough, instead of soft,
I probably couldn’t afford to hate makeup,
or to fear so much the beauty salon or the
very idea of beautyship.
And my mother was beautiful—did I say this?
In my small eyes, and my smooth withered skin,
you can see my heart, you can read my naked lips.]]> 2019-05-10 14:48:01 UTC https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358903412 3474642 https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358928470 Sharon Olds is an award-winning American poet. Olds is an esteemed poet and is most known for her poetry work that challenges society's norms and brings into conversation difficult topics that have helped challenge social barriers. Olds was born on November 19, 1942 in San Francisco, California to a strict religious family. Her religious family, sheltered her from the outside world. For example, Olds was not permitted to go to the movie theater or watch any television. Allen Ginsberg's, Howl and Other Poems, were among others that inspired her in her later educational life. On March 23, 1968, she married Dr. David Douglas Olds and later gave birth to their two children. In 1997, after 29 years of marriage, they divorced and Olds moved to New Hampshire to restart her life. In New Hampshire, Olds began to write poetry works about her family, abuse, and sex as she began to freely express her thoughts. Olds declined an invitation to read at a White House book fair in 2005 because of her conflicting political views with those of the Bush Administration. Olds' poetry works are included in over 100 collections, ranging from literary and poetry textbooks to special prized collections. Her poetry has been translated into seven languages for international publications. She was appointed as the New York State Poet Laureate from 1998 to 2000. Her collection of poems were published into a book titled Stag’s Leap, written in 2012, and included poems that explored details of her divorce. The book was awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and Britain's T.S. Eliot prize. Olds has won numerous other awards for her work, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Olds currently teaches in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at New York University. Her next collection, Arias, will be published and released in fall 2019. ]]> 2019-05-10 15:44:27 UTC https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358928470 3474642 https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358937368 2019-05-10 16:06:40 UTC https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358937368 3474642 https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358941857 2019-05-10 16:17:25 UTC https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/358941857 3474642 https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/359943525 2019-05-14 15:03:59 UTC https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/359943525 3474642 https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/360110150 2019-05-14 21:16:54 UTC https://padlet.com/3474642/2z003akj0y8x/wish/360110150