Poet's Corner: Station by Sharon Olds

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Station by Sharon Olds

Coming in off the dock after writing,
I approached the house,
and saw your long grandee face
in the light of a lamp with a parchment shade
the color of flame.

An elegant hand on your beard. Your tapered
eyes found me on the lawn. You looked
as the lord looks down from a narrow window
and you are descended from lords. Calmly, with no
hint of shyness you examined me,
the wife who runs out on the dock to write
as soon as one child is in bed,
leaving the other to you.

Your long
mouth, flexible as an archer’s bow,
did not curve. We spent a long moment
in the truth of our situation, the poems
heavy as poached game hanging from my hands.

Comments

[ancientreader]

Eesh. To the extent that this is autobiographical, it's excruciating -- especially in contrast with a particular poem I remember but can't think of the name of, about the fitting-together of lovers' bodies.

That "long grandee face." So much alienation in just those three words.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Oh, that's an interesting take! I got a 'bundle' of poetry books from the library yesterday [the librarians pick out a set of 6 books based on general topic/genre] and the first one I'm looking at is Sharon Olds. So I may have already come across the lovers' bodies one but she writes A Lot about Sex in a way that makes me gag [it made me think of a line by Agatha Christie where one old lady says 'the way vegetarians talk about 'flesh' it puts you right off your beefsteak' the way Sharon Olds writes about sex puts me right off PWP.] so I have been skipping the sex ones.

But I liked this for the last line: the poems / heavy as poached game hanging from my hands. I thought that was a wonderful image of poet with verse. And, yeah, I mean, I write verse after the kids go to bed and sometimes there's a sort of desperation to get away from them, and the boys' father looks at my tower of library books like I'm mad. That's all very normal, I think, but it really was about last line, like a fisherman holding up the catch of the day and being proud, even though the person looking on doesn't really give a shit.

[ancientreader]

I do often find Sharon Olds a bit much, like she's clutching my shirt and staring into my face, so truth be told I haven't read that much of her work -- she doesn't exactly have a light touch, does she?

I suspect that very many women writers are in your boat, with respect to (ahem) stealing time in which to work at their art. And even under the best circumstances we women have been well trained not to give priority to the things that matter to us but don't necessarily serve those around us.

[firecat]

like a fisherman holding up the catch of the day and being proud, even though the person looking on doesn't really give a shit.

Because of the word "poached," I read a lot of guilt in that line. Pride, and the other person's not giving a shit, are there too. But especially with the "you" being called a grandee and a lord, and poaching meaning stealing from a lord's land, I get a sense that the narrator and the "you" both see the writing on the dock as the narrator taking away something that is his.

[stonepicnicking_okapi]

Ah, yeah, I see that interpretation of poached. I think I was thinking of the poems like an egg being pulled out of water but I think you're right. She feels guilty because she made him put the one kid to bed and did something with that 'time' that wasn't for the good of the household or him.