Sharon Olds: “Speaking is a form of political action”

That’s what I always felt when reading Sharon Olds (San Francisco, California, 1942), and it’s what I experienced when talking to her in her office at New York University. 80 yearsIt appeals to students like me who want to get a master’s degree.

It was an ordinary Saturday for those walking in the heavy rain in the region that day. Washington Square. But not for me. I was going to see Sharon Olds. It was a very nice conversation we had.

We talked about the brutality of the new war between Israel and Hamas; the beauty of the house, always so despised by male critics; Indifferent to the genders of creation, sexism; the privilege of being heard and the virtue of knowing how to listen; what about? the personal is always poeticand also political.

But we are not talking about the numerous awards among them. TS Eliot, Pulitzer, Wallace Stevens or Joan Margarit, which she received from King Felipe in July. these old ones a modest and generous womanA poet who tells, sings and celebrates life.

His poems are always direct and very personal. Where does this talent of yours come from?

I think it’s because I come from a family tradition where the most important things were left unspoken, marked by oppression and religion. “What am I not supposed to talk about?” I didn’t think so. Simply put, the things I was most interested in before my birth were outside of most of the literature. This left a huge space for new poems and literature itself. It was exciting and moving to think that I could do this instead of doing what I had to do. Because I definitely shouldn’t have written this way…

So how should I write?

Oh, I don’t know, I really don’t know.

Because what did your family expect from you?

I don’t know. They were waiting for love, and I loved them too. They were expecting an obedient girl, but it wasn’t me. They were proud of their good grades at school, but they were traditional people. I don’t usually talk much about them, but I think it’s fair to say that their way of understanding life and literature is traditional.

When did you decide you wanted to write? Did you always know you would be a poet?

I always knew I wanted to do something, and after I learned to read and write, I wanted to create a little world on the page.

So was this all somehow related to beauty?

Maybe… With individual truths rather than conventional beauty. It’s not necessarily a pretty thing, but it’s useful and accurate enough.

Do you think it is possible to capture the truth through language?

Not exactly. Maybe it is possible for a person to construct a small model of truth for himself. But I am not in touch with universal truths and voices. How faithful can language be to experience? This is different. We can touch reality and language represents reality. So it’s like a secret password, or not so secret but like a password. It is a way of hiding things that will die and the words of people who will die. It is an imperfect record of what is lost over time.

Language is a way of preserving things that will die and the words of people who will die. It is an imperfect record of what is lost in time

So what do you think about the relationship between truth and literature?

This is a very individual and perhaps mysterious thing. We try to put these mysteries into words. Different artists use their own tools to achieve this, in my case, language. But different people’s realities are very different.

But there are still people who always believe they have the truth.

I’m not like that. I don’t think I’m right. How can I be right?

This is impossible.

It seems impossible. There is no official art made for everyone. So if someone finds something they like or something useful in my poetry, that’s great. That’s what art is for.

To connect people?

Maybe yes and reveal. If I read your novel, it would open up a world different from the world of my ancestors, and thus I would understand our species better. Art has helped us understand very different people.

In this sense, do you believe that poetry is a kind of civil action, political action?

I think so too. I believe speaking is a type of political action, I believe saying what we believe is a type of political action. Many times people die because they say what they believe in politically. In general, the price is not very high, but it is something that has happened throughout history. Whenever we say what we believe and suggest a possible way of doing things, it is a political act. Simply put, it seems like a political act to me.

So poetry is political.

I couldn’t say that because there are aspects of poetry that are so sincere that politics generally doesn’t seem that way. A good poem should have freedom, freedom of expression, and not just be a platform for one to present one’s point of view.

So should the creative publicly express his personal views on politics, his country, and the war?

Great question… I’m not knowledgeable enough. I don’t have the emotional strength to read a newspaper.

Don’t you read the newspapers?

I read them this week. But do I read newspapers every day? NO.

I don’t have the emotional strength to read the newspaper every day. It’s very sad and scary.

Because?

It’s very sad and very scary. If I’m going to write, I need good humor, or at least bearable humor, so I can think about what’s right and what’s wrong. But the question you asked me is very important. Many poets I know are well versed in the historical moment we live in, but I don’t have that talent.

Are you afraid of losing hope?

Clear.

So if I lose it, will I continue writing?

I hope so. I don’t write to save the world.

What are you writing for?

I love making things. And love has a great weight in my heart. And when one gives the gift of love and tries to realize it according to one’s own truth, it does no harm. The more we understand each other, how different we are and how similar we are, the more hope there is for the Earth and the world.

So, how does he establish a relationship with history and time through his poems?

Simply put, I put all my effort into writing a poem that would work both as a work of art and as a work of History. I am not a thinker who has knowledge and ideas and puts them in books to teach people something. I’m not like that at all. I’m a pretty normal person. When I was growing up, women were limited to smaller roles; Their jobs were childcare, housework, cooking, and anything that wasn’t public. I later discovered that I was interested in writing about these topics. But not from a didactic point of view, but because I found beauty, truth, liveliness, a kind of positivity in them.

I am not a thinker who has knowledge and ideas and puts them in books to teach people something. I am a very normal person

What did you learn from Emily Dickinson, Gwendolyn Brooks, and all your mentors?

What you notice when reading his poems is how different they are from each other. Emily Dickinson has that old, traditional way of opening up and spreading across the page. Gwendolyn Brooks has both; both official and free. To me, poetry means something more than just receiving a message. It’s more like dancing.

I love the metaphor.

Meter and rhyme of the verses. I’m kind of a narrative poet. I am lyrical but expressive. So I’m kind of a storyteller and kind of a poet.

So why did you choose poetry instead of novels?

I tried writing prose. I think everyone is starting to write prose. I think I write better as a poet. It’s a way to make me a little more honest and a little less melodramatic. And I like the form, I put it on the page in a way that maybe it gets into the reader’s consciousness.

Do you write by hand?

Yes, I learned to type when I was seven, but the rhythm, the dance, was not the same as that of the arm.

Since you are talking about movement, do you think the energy of a work, a poem, can transform an experience into art?

You can suggest this. To me, it makes perfect sense that our species would want to make art as soon as we became humans. If I read a poem that moves me very much…

So what is going to happen?

I feel my heart moving, my senses moving, my sense of being alive increasing.

There is so much lack of self love in the world. It’s like we hate ourselves

Do you mind if people read your poems from an autobiographical perspective?

I don’t care, it’s none of my business. I do not talk about my work as autobiography or anti-autobiography. It doesn’t seem important to me. What is important is whether a poem is useful or not, whether it is powerful or not. When I started writing, they just asked me if what I wrote was autobiographical, that’s all. And that was natural, I didn’t care. But I always feel like I get asked a lot of questions about it just because I’m a woman. No male writer I know has ever been asked about the autobiographical nature of his works.

He doesn’t know how I understand him…

Of course he understands, of course. I hope we can make some progress…

So, do you feel exposed by the things you share in your poems?

No. Am I being exposed as someone who wants to be creative? Yes, it turns out that I am someone who likes to write about the body? Yes, it is free will that directs me to write my poems.

One of the things I admire most about you is how much you love intimacy.

Yeah yeah. Maybe everyone gravitates towards art partly because of this affinity. I hunger and thirst for experiences of intimacy and awareness of closeness.

No male writer I know has ever been asked about the autobiographical nature of his works. Yes, I always did and they asked me because I was a woman.

He was 37 years old when he published his first collection of poetry. Now that you are about to turn 81, what do you think when you look back?

I realize how lucky I was to have published my first poetry collection at that age. She was also a full-time mother and a full-time writer.

Is it possible?

Yes it was. They took a nap from time to time [ríe]. My material was ordinary, traditional family life. I was very lucky. The pandemic has shown many of us how easy our lives are. I was very lucky in many important ways. I felt like I could write about things that were generally considered private, which was something I wanted to do even though I was clearly told I was wrong.

But it wasn’t.

I do not believe in that. I don’t have many big ideas, so I tend to focus on what’s close enough to my nose to see. I am such a writer. Here in my office, I think about all the books I’ve read and… Writing is definitely a gift.

And discipline

Yes, discipline and comfort. Because if you love writing, why not write? Remember that we are all writing this, this wave of stylistic history and political history at the same time.

Do you enjoy teaching?

Oh yes. I am so lucky to be able to make friends with wonderful and strong young writers. I learn a lot from them. I feel like them, too, because I feel like we’re working side by side, each hoping that the next poem will contain something new, exciting.

So what advice would you give to a young writer?

My advice to creators of all ages is to first take vitamins, take care of yourself, take care of your body, pay attention to your health, and eat well. In my experience, and from what I’ve seen in others, the path to drugs and alcohol is not a good path for a writer. The most important thing is to take care of yourself. And there is so much lack of self-love among everyone, not just writers. It’s like we hate ourselves. Taking care of yourself means working against that negative energy.