A family is a mystery. Sharon Olds More Quotes by Sharon Olds More Quotes From Sharon Olds I was a late bloomer. But anyone who blooms at all, ever, is very lucky. Sharon Olds luckypoetrywriting Poets are like steam valves, where the ordinary feelings of ordinary people can escape and be shown. Sharon Olds ordinaryfeelingspeople There is something in me maybe someday to be written; now it is folded, and folded, and folded, like a note in school. Sharon Olds somedaynotesschool Writing or making anything-a poem, a bird feeder, a chocolate cake-has self-respect in it. You're working. You're trying. You're not lying down on the ground, having given up. Sharon Olds selfwritinglying .. to a poet, the human community is like the community of birds to a bird, singing to each other. Love is one of the reasons we are singing to one another, love of language itself, love of sound, love of singing itself, and love of the other birds. Sharon Olds communitylove-isbird Take your vitamins. Exercise. Just work to love yourself as much as you can - not more than the people around you but not so much less. Sharon Olds exerciselove-youpeople I'm not asking a poem to carry a lot of rocks in its pockets. Just being an ordinary observer and liver and feeler and letting the experience get through you onto the notebook with the pen, through the arm, out of the body, onto the page, without distortion. Sharon Olds rocksnotebookpockets I did not deceive him, he did not deceive me, I did not leave him, he did not leave me, I freed him, he freed me. Sharon Olds leaving-medeceiving Poems come from ordinary experiences and objects, I think. Out of memory - a dress I lent my daughter on her way back to college; a newspaper photograph of war; a breast self-exam; the tooth fairy; Calvinist parents who beat up their children; a gesture of love; seeing oneself naked over age 50 in a set of bright hotel bathroom mirrors. Sharon Olds daughtermemorieschildren The older I get, the more I see the power of that young woman, my mother. Sharon Olds daughtermombirthday I did not know him, I knew my idea of him. Sharon Olds knowsideas I have learned to get pleasure from speaking of pain Sharon Olds i-have-learnedpleasurepain Well, one thing I'm really interested in, when I'm writing, is being accurate. Sharon Olds accuratewellswriting I didn't have time to sit down and look at the work of a year and choose what to type. Sharon Olds down-andlooksyears Baseball is reassuring. It makes me feel as if the world is not going to blow up. Sharon Olds baseballblowworld Well, 'The Wellspring' was written from 1983 to 1986. And it had a section in the beginning that was poems that began from others' experience. Sharon Olds wellspringwellswritten If I wrote in a sonnet form, I would be distorting. Or if I had some great new idea for line breaks and I used it in a poem, but it's really not right for that poem, but I wanted it, that would be distorting. Sharon Olds lineswould-beideas This creature of the poem may assemble itself into a being with its own centrifugal force. Sharon Olds forcecreaturesmay it is forbidden to love where we are not loved Sharon Olds forbidden The older I get, the more I feel. Sharon Olds natural-talentgetting-olderdaughter
