Sharon Olds is one of contemporary poems leading voices. Olds is known for writing intensely personal, emotionally scathing poetry which graphically depicts family life as well as global political events (Foundation). Sharon Olds is known for writing poetry in which she utilizes a strongly individual voice to investigate topics of abusive behavior at home, sexuality, and family connections. In some of her writing, she analyzes her parts as little girl and mother, rendering horrendously undecided recollections of her folks in unsentimental, fiercely legit, and frequently sexually unequivocal dialect. When Olds writes, she has a tendency to be passionate and emotionally connected to her writings and most of her poems are expressed by intimacy, …show more content…
In this poetry book she separated it into four sections. In those four sections, she titled them, “Daughter”, “Woman”, “Mother”, and “Journeys”. These sections addressed topics such as family relationships, adolescence, motherhood, domestic abuse, and sexuality. In this poem is starts “I am locked in a little cedar box with a picture of shepherds pasted onto the central panel between carvings/The box stands on curved legs.” (Foundation). It appears that she is referencing the container to a box. As the poem continues she continues “It has a gold, heart-shaped lock and no key” (Foundation). What is entrancing about the opening of the poem is that the crate picture works as both image and accurate space in which whatever is left of the poem unfurls, and through which it can be deciphered. After reading the poem one can decipher that Olds is utilizing the container and an allegory for her depicting adolescence …show more content…
What's more, this is absolutely what happens to Olds' speaker, as Satan. “I’ll get you out,” Satan says (Olds). In return for freedom, however, the speaker must articulate a progression of obscenities. First, she’s asked to denounce her father as “a shit” and her mother as “a pimp.” Desperate, the speaker goes along, rehashing Satan's words. “Something opens and breaks when I say that. My spine uncurls in the cedar box like the pink back of the ballerina pin with a ruby eye, resting beside me on satin in the cedar box” (Olds). As Olds is writing this poem, she keeps the reader engaged to the jewelry box. Once more, the speaker rehashes after Satan. However, doing as such keeps on opening a large group of repulsive emotions. “The pain of the locked past buzzes / in the child’s box on her bureau (Olds).’ In this line, Olds seems to be having painful memories of her childhood, by the images that she is creating. Many individuals adapt to traumatic occasions by disassociation; others by throwing fault. Olds' Satan tries to persuade the speaker from her box, by asking her to point the finger at her "shit" father and "pimp"