Sep 17, 2009

Poem for a Day: "The One Girl at the Boys Party" by Sharon Olds





Before summer is so long gone that we forget what it felt
like . . .

It seems that a lot of parents don’t want to think about certain aspects of their offspring, their issue--that strange lawyer word. Their reluctance certainly includes the subject of their children’s sexuality.

Sharon Olds’ poetry doesn’t shy away from much, and I don't think she’s backing down from a delicate subject here. But her humor and the mathematics motif neutralize tensions in ways that keep Olds in acceptable, proper territory. Don’t they?

a wild multiplying . . . drops sparkling and falling . . . the power of a thousand . . .

To read the poem, copy and paste or click on one of the links below. I'm sorry to say the site works inconsistently. If you have trouble, you could simply google the poem title and see what happens.

http://www1.assumption.edu/users/ady/HHGateway/Etexts/oldsparty.html

www.assumption.edu/users/ady/HHGateway/.../oldsparty.html


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