The Unswept Room

by Sharon Olds

Book Overview

From Sharon Olds--a stunning new collection of poems that project a fresh spirit, a startling energy of language and counterpoint, and a moving, elegiac tone shot through with humor.

From poems that erupt out of history and childhood to those that embody the nurturing of a new generation of children and the transformative power of marital love, Sharon Olds takes risks, writing boldly of physical, emotional, and spiritual sensations that are...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0375709983
• ISBN13: 9780375709982
• Release Date: September 2002
• Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.9" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

A Glimpse Over The Wall

I'm a guy, 62 years old, day job as a herder-of-diesel mechanics in a small shipyard. Voracious appetite for poetry for the most recent few years of my life. Along now comes "The Unswept Room." The cover art is worth the price of the book. Inside is a voyage that defines travel at it's apex. I'm captured from the beginning with Olds' fluidity, warmth, and, excuse the use of a well-worn word in re: poetry, her clarity. It's not easy to penetrate the soul of a man used for years to the bending of wrenches. The body of work in this book set me up for just such a piercing. Then early this morning, I got to "April, New Hampshire." Brought the salty fluid to bathe my eyes, but none fell out. A few pages on, "The Learner" nailed me to wall. I thought "The Red Queen" had taught me more than one gender should know about the other, from a scientific line of sight. Ms. Olds has taken this salty old codger staightaway into her soul, her feminine soul. I will be forever grateful. Ladies--You may have kindred candles lit for you. Gentlemen--You may learn from the light of those candles. Lee

I've seen her read...

Despite some readership's lack of comprehension for the genuis that is Sharon Olds, I am a believer in her as art and artist. I've seen her read (at Oklahoma State University) and was held in awe by her delivery and the new poems she read to the audience. I respect her as a poet, a woman, an artist, an honest voice to depict real-life horror. Poetry is not an artifact for a reader to condemn (or praise too highly). Just observe, open yourself to the experience, and be contently uncomfortably (or uncomfortably content) in the reactions churning within yourself.

Great work

Sharon Olds does not disappoint. This is my new favorite book!

The evolution and experimentation of poetry

I applaud Sharon Olds for not bowing to the literati's mandate that all poetry must rhyme, be a sonnet, a villanelle, pantoum. This is free verse at its finest. It may not subscribe to a "type" but it is lyrical and poetic just the same. Poetry is evolving and many of today's writers are moving away from the strict rhyme and meter. The poetry in The Unswept Room is some of Olds' finest work. After the brilliant and harrowing poetry about her abuse as a child, this volume finds a more settled Olds starting a new chapter in her life. Bravo.

Olds is at the top of her form.

Strong, beautiful and breathtaking.I didn't think Olds' work could get any stronger, but it does. Her sense of meter and her willingness to take the reader on a real leap of mind and heart are even more developed here than in her earlier work. A must-read for any poet or anyone who likes poetry.