January-December

January- December

The first set of poems in the book is about when Olds found out that her husband was having an affair and that he was leaving her. At first, I was really confused and I was not quite sure what was going on. When I finally figured out what was going on, I felt sorry for her and I wanted to comfort her. I think that the reason that I liked this book was because it had raw emotions and you knew how she felt the whole time. Olds took you through the journey of her crumbling marriage and how she got through it.

The poem that stuck out at me the most was the first poem “While He Told Me”. This is the first poem in the whole book and it is when her husband first tells her that he is having an affair. It says that she “looked from small thing to small thing in our room.” One of the things that she looked at was a postcard of a woman bending down to a lily. I looked online to see what it meant and it said that it represented female sexuality. I am not really sure what to get out of that but she also talks about how she looked at her husband’s breasts. I am not really sure why.

I picked this poem because not only did it set a mood for the whole book, but it had very raw emotions and very distinct symbols that I could look up and figure out what they meant.

-Cami Shoe